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Might as well face it
Technology addiction is no joke to those whose lives have been turned upside down
By Adam Douglas-->Contributing Writer
Published: Thursday, April 21, 2011
Updated: Thursday, April 21, 2011 02:04
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For those who doubt that technology addiction is real, encompassing the social consequences of a dependency on drugs or other substances, consider 26-year-old housewife Heather Westridge, who said her technology addiction has gotten so bad that her husband of five years now wants a divorce.
"He has been mad at me for some time now," said Westridge, a Memphis native now living in Louisiana. "It has gotten to the point where I would rather sleep with my computer than to sleep with him. I had gotten accustomed to a routine that included me waking up with the laptop next to me, checking my Facebook, my Twitter, Skype, Yahoo, Gmail, anything you can think of — I had to check it.
"Also, I had to get a second laptop because I ran out of memory on the other one," she continued. "I was spending too much money on the Internet and on other various forms of technology that my husband couldn't believe it, and it almost cost us our house and kids. That's when he stepped up and said he wanted a divorce. There's nothing I can do to change things now."
Despite anecdotal evidence that some people are truly addicted to technology, such as social media, technology addiction is not clearly defined, said James P. Whelan, associate psychology professor and co-director of the Psychological Services Center for the Institute for Gambling Education and Research at The University of Memphis.
"Today, there is no recognized addiction to technology, although colloquially we understand that people use things excessively," Whelan said. "But there are two ways to understand what we view as an addiction. In society, we think of it as something that someone does too much or abuse(s). Another way to think of it is that someone engages in a behavior that causes harm in their life, and they continue to engage in that behavior, coincidentally causing harm to others around them that they care about."
Whelan said if people are checking Facebook and other social networking sites many times a day and then forgetting about other daily happenings, those people may be in over their heads.
"When you get to being on your Facebook, Twitter and checking email 30 to 40 times but then forget to go to work or do your homework or go to class, then that's when you may have a problem," Whelan said. "That's maybe because they're using technology to get away from doing the things they need to do in their life — or getting away from the stress that they may have in their life."
Although some research indicates that as little as 6 percent of Internet users are compulsive with social media and other electronic pastimes, a 2009 study by Andrew Kakabadse, a professor at leading business school Cranfield School of Management at the United Kingdom's Cranfield University, found that 60 percent of teenaged respondents described themselves as addicted to the Internet. However, the teenagers' personal ideas of what constituted an addiction were not clear.
Even if technology addiction hasn't been fully defined or accepted in the psychological community, there are treatment facilities for Internet abuse around the world, including the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction, a research and treatment center in Hartford, Conn. Treatments at the center include a variety of behavior therapies, psychotherapy, group therapy and holistic and alternative medical approaches.
A less serious but nonetheless problematic side effect of social media is complaints from teachers and prospective employers that some people are using the abbreviated language that is common in texting and Twitter when formal writing should be used. A magazine editor complained that she received an email that said: "R U hiring? Call me." She did not.
Monica Kinnard, a recruitment manager at Servicemaster, said using abbreviated language is by far the worst thing you can do to get the attention of a prospective employer.
"I see it all the time," Kinnard said. "It is very unprofessional to go and either talk to someone or read their resumes and see that they are talking like they have been texting their entire lives. I mean, even when you talk to them face-to-face, they still use words that people use during texting or on Facebook or Twitter or something."
Kakabadse's research on teen technology addiction found that 39 percent of 11-18 year olds surveyed said that text shortcuts damaged the quality of their written English. Twitter is the type of social media most often blamed for abbreviated written language among the young, but a study led by assistant professor of journalism Carrie Brown-Smith at The U of M found that Twitter attracts only 8 percent of American Internet users.
Ayyanna Nailing, sophomore psychology major at The U of M, said she considers herself a former social media addict.
"I used to be on Facebook and Twitter all day to where I never got off of it," Nailing said. "I used to have very easy classes, which allowed me to have free time, and I would be on the social networks all day with my best friends. But now since I changed my major, I don't have the time to really be addicted to anything but class."
However, Nailing said she has traded social media addiction for another type of technology addiction.
"I am now addicted to my phone," she said. "I sleep with it and everything … I feel incomplete without it."
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Friday, April 22, 2011
Might as well face it
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