How Damaging is Our Smart Phone Obsession?

Obssessed? Who's obsessed?

Well, the average teen is now sending and receiving 3,417 texts per month, or between 7 and 8 a hour. Make's the telephone scene in the 60s movie "Bye, Bye Birdie" seem so quaint (historical reference alert; take a film class when you get to college...or at your retirement home).

The question, as a civilization, is not just what we have gained from mobile access - but we may be losing. The issue could probably be quantified, but that would be beside the point. Because the losses are likely to be spiritual and intellectual, not at the top of the priority list for a society engaged in a debate, in some quarters, about whether to fund any educational endeavor not devoted to science, technology, engineering and math.

Observers have been worrying about the impact of technology on society for over a century. And there were probably some who decried the railroad and even the wheel for similar reasons. But for the past century or so the concern has focused on alienation. Given humanity's record during that time period, it might be worth further consideration. JL

Quentin Fottrell comments in SmartMoney:

There’s no app for arrogance. Smartphone users don’t need one, says the author of a new book.

Addiction to gadgets is a national malady, says Larry Rosen, whose book “iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us,” relates the social and psychological consequences of dependence on iPhones, Androids and Blackberrys. The average teenager sends and receives 3,417 text messages per month, according to Nielsen, or between 7 and 8 per waking hour.
In another 2011 study carried out by Rosen, he found younger people’s anxiety escalates when they check their messages.

Stalking Facebook and Twitter causes people to become more depressed and more narcissistic, Rosen says. “Social networking is a predictor of many disorders,” he says. All the talk of “me, me, me” on Facebook suggests social networking has gone too far, he says. Studies also show that one-in-three Generation Xers and one-in-six baby boomers constantly check their devices. Rosen offers some solutions: write a status update or tweet, then take a break. If the words “me” or “I” appear more frequently than “we” or “us,” he says it might be worth re-writing or even deleting it.

We spoke to Rosen about the increasingly tight grip technology has over Americans:

Pay Dirt: Is having Facebook, Twitter, email, calls and texts on the same Smartphone the perfect storm for addictive personalities?

Rosen: All of it has happened so rapidly that we have barely had the time to process it. Technology is changing our world more than ever before. The catalyst now is the Smartphone.

You write that constant social networking can cause and/or exacerbate psychiatric problems. They include: — deep breath — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, hypochondriasis, schizoaffective and schizotypal disorders, body dysmorphia, voyeurism and addiction. Have I got them all?

There is a large amount of anxiety about connecting with people online. They are the critical ones that seem to be linked with things going wrong. The use of social networking sites tends to show signs and symptoms of many psychiatric disorders when compared with people who don’t do it as much.

We’ve spoken about OCD and ADHD. Do you know ASL?

American Sign Language?

Not even close. Try again.

Age, sex, location?

Correct. People now use GPS dating apps to meet each other on the hoof. Who even bothers to send a drink over to the cute guy or girl across a bar or restaurant anymore?

My version of the worldwide web is: Wherever, Whatever, Whenever.

Also, you write that it’s not good for our brains to be clicking away on Facebook an hour before bed. It’s like sleeping with the enemy, right?

Teenagers need around nine hours of sleep a night and they are getting around seven hours during the school week and trying to desperately make up with it by getting 10-plus at the weekend. I worry about what it’s doing to our brains. Before bed, do something that doesn’t stimulate your brain too much like watching TV. That’s a passive activity.

TV gets a free pass? That used to be the main culprit for tech-addicts.

Studies show that TV is positively related to a good night’s sleep. That’s also because people who are watching TV in the hour before they go to bed are usually not on their Smartphones.

Did you know that people text and tweet from church?

Yes, people do try to use it surreptitiously in movie theaters and church. They can’t stand not being in touch. The funniest place is the restrooms in airports. I hear voices coming out of stalls when people were talking on the phone. And many men are cradling their cell phones in their shoulder when they’re doing their business.

What’s really the harm in that?

It’s the excessive aspect of it. It turns us into voyeurs. Facebook addicts spend hours looking at photos of people they don’t really know.

What’s harder: deactivating your Facebook account or donating a kidney? I tried going cold turkey on Facebook for 24 hours.

I don’t advocate giving it up for 24 hours. It makes people crazy. I recommend tech breaks. You give yourself a one-minute tech break. You learn how to focus without your technology. Do this and start lengthening it to 15 minutes, then to half an hour.

Someone once said – the Dalai Lama, I think, among others – that being in the moment is the secret to happiness. Isn’t that ultimately what’s at stake here?

I give a poignant example about exactly that in my book. On vacation recently in Hawaii, I saw a double-rainbow. Next to me three kids were oohing and aahing, but mommy and daddy were videotaping it and taking pictures with their Smartphones. We are recording our lives to enjoy them later. Can you enjoy a beautiful double rainbow on a two-dimensional screen?

Well, you can try. But just be thankful they were photographing the rainbows and not their kids. Everywhere I go these days I see children being told to pose and smile. There’s a whole generation of children whose lives must be like a 24/7 beauty pageant.

When film cost money to process that didn’t happen. But with digital Smartphone cameras, why not take 20 pictures of your child in a row? It’s become easy and, yes, excessive.

One final question — hot off my iPhone. What Twitter aficionado tweeted this yesterday: “The powerful shouldn’t get to create one set of rules for themselves and one set of rules for everyone else.”

I hope that that quote is from someone I respect. Wait, I Googled it and it is. Barack Obama.

Lol.