Scientist warns against technology addiction How many hours do you spend online or plugged into a games console? Well, a scientist at Northampton University believes you could be suffering from technology addiction and has launched an online survey to explore this ticking timebomb. The survey aims to discover how the use of multiple forms of technology affects our daily …
Title says it all - the most intelligent person at Northampton University is a caretaker, I'm not sure anyone there is even qualified to make such comments.
Of course, there's undoubtedly truth in it - anything can be an addiction, that's purely down to the individuals involved. I'm certainly a self confessed addict of technology and I'm not ashamed of it :D
So if we habitually use mobes instead of land line are we techno addicts?
I'm personally addicted to the masterpiece of technology known as the electric kettle. I just can't stop making tea.
Toasters can also be habit -forming.
"a designated email-free day in the office." Sod the trees, we'll all use paper post instead.
I have noted though, that it can't be a 'proper' report as it's not coming from a boffin - only a scientist.
This looks to me like someone decided to slap a new name on Internet Addiction, that scary thing that psychologists were warning us about back in the late 90's, back when the 'Net was new and different.
Back then I looked at their figures for how much time you were supposed to have to average on the internet per-week to make you "addicted", and found that it was generally *less* time than most people spent watching TV each week, yet somehow no one ever seemed to talk about Television Addiction.
I suspect that in this case, if you asked a number of those questions but had them related to television, and how many people interrupt their social time and personal conversations to watch a show or game on the TV, and how much total time the spend in front of the tube they'd have to claim that most people are Television Addicted.
Paris, because her presence on the tube makes a good antidote for Television Addiction.
"the explosion of information technologies over the last 20 years has happened without much scrutiny of the effects on people."
Too bad he can't include MTV - i.e. 27 years ago when video killed the radio star. That would've supplied the necessary perspective for the "oh yeah" epiphany.
"In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind: we've gone too far."
How about *READING* "addiction": spending your "down" time reading books? Or the aforementioned Television "addiction"? Or, even worse, our "addiction" to work - 40+ hours a week in behavior that has been "proven" to be as detrimental to our health as alcohol abuse?
I guess it all comes down to what one group of people consider "balanced" behavior versus another group. Is reading books every evening instead of watching television for an "addictive" amount of time considered abnormal? Is working at a skill you really enjoy - and often getting paid for it - considered an "addiction"?
Usually an "addiction" is defined as a behavior that adversely affects your life; that is, a behavior that causes physiological, psychological or financial damage to you and your family or close associates. "Traditional" addictions like alcohol, drugs or gambling have clearly identifiable symptoms and consequences. However, "substitution" of one behavior for another that does NOT have adverse life impacts, or at least no worse than the replaced "acceptable" behavior, shouldn't qualify as an addiction - unless they start having the same impact to your life as one of the "traditional" addictive behaviors.
So substituting computer or technology use for time that would be spent reading, watching television, playing chess, watching a movie are NOT addiction: they are simply "life-style choices" that technology makes available today.
And the real biggie - work "addiction" - is actually encouraged, as it decreases the cost of productivity...at the expense of both quality of life and physiological health.
Tell you what: I won't consider it an "addiction" until the police set up checkpoints for "excessive work behavior" late at night and haul me off to a Caribbean resort until I "learn my lesson" and pay my leisure debt to Society...
If you are reading this far, chances are you are...
What's left remaining is how addicted you are.
1. |f u c4n r34d t|-|!s 1t = b4D.
2. 50 DKP minus
3. Vin > Chuck
4. zomg 200msec ping
5. You're only here because your server is down.
If any of the above made any sense to you, then you are well and truly F-ed, sorry mate. Get a life :P
PH icon 'cos that's the closest you'll ever come to getting a shag.
... to cope with the technology and society we have today.
How long were we hunter gatherers before the agricultural revolution, rise of cities and nations, industry and now this?
Mark my words. This is mankind's gravest weakness.
We are intelligent. We make discoveries, we can do the science. But... we are not ... wise....
We are still primitive in many ways. We have instincts. Our instincts and emotions beget us thoughts. But our thoughts seldom control our instincts and emotions.
One day, it may result in our extinction.
...for instance, I am completely addicted to housing. Whenever I don't have housing, I feel nervous and worry about when I can get housing next. I spend at least two-thirds of my time in housing. Sometimes, if the weather is bad, I don't want to leave my housing at all.
A large proportion of my income goes directly to housing, and if push comes to shove, I'll pay for housing before food.
It's about time somebody did something about the housing problem! Millions of lives are at stake! When will we rid the world of the scourge of housing??
My names Grae,
I have a blackberry and an all inclusive data plan.
Let me get this straight this is an addiction that except in its worst case scenario will it cause absolutely no health problems. At all. NONE!!! Damn yeah we should ban it!!
So now I cant smoke, drink or use my Blackberry at work. Urrrr what am I supposed to do?
Paris because very soon there wont be any IT so she wont be confused.
Only someone with a lowered IQ would over-pay for Me Too PC Clone technology, a $2600 Notebook 'Air' with less features than a PDA and a 2G cell phone that's an over glamorized iPud.
See Science DOES prove this Hypothesis! Buying crApple = delusional Addictions.
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