Technology Addiction Taking Its Toll

By on April 21, 2011 in News 8

Windows Phone 7 mockupAfter getting a smart phone last year, I too feel the effects of technology addiction. It snuck up on me. I now feel like I spend a large portion of my day moving from one of three screens: my television, laptop, and cellphone. I find myself checking my collection of news sites and blogs, as well as my social networks quite often throughout the day. I’d say at least once an hour, if not more. While it has opened up many doors to knowledge and communication it also makes me wonder what exactly the implications of such a lifestyle change will have on my generation’s future mentality and health. Keeping a phone in my pocket right next to my…sensitive areas? We’re the guinea pigs to the virtual future.

Anybody else a little cautious about the 21st Century level of connectedness? Share your views down in the comments. Discovery News reports:

Many young Asians are finding it tough to cope without a gadget in hand. Are Americans next?

A baby girl starves to death as her parents raise a virtual child online; a boy scolded for excessive gaming kills his mother then commits suicide — technology addiction is taking a toll in Asia.

With more 100 million “smart phones” now sold annually in the Asia-Pacific region — expected to double in five years’ time — it is the world’s largest market for advanced mobile devices.

And as social networking sites and mobile games explode in tandem with the telecom industry, many young Asians are finding it tough to cope without a gadget in hand or a computer within reach.

“I guess you can call me addicted, fine,” admitted 22-year-old Singaporean university student Hanna Ruslana, who has befriended more schoolmates on Twitter than on campus.

She checks her iPhone at least every 15 minutes and maintains accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and LinkedIn.

When Twitter freezes, she and her friends plunge into an anxious wait.

But hers is a mild case compared to tragic examples in South Korea, one of the world’s most electronically-connected societies.

Last December, a mother was arrested for allegedly killing her three-year-old son while she was tired from Internet game-playing.

A month earlier, a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after killing his mother for scolding him over his gaming habits.

In May 2010, a 41-year-old South Korean man was sentenced to two years in jail after he and his wife left their baby daughter to die of malnutrition while raising a virtual child on the Internet.

The Seoul government estimates the number of web addicts at about two million in a nation of almost 50 million…

For more information, see original article.

, , , , , , , , , ,

  • Voidthought

    This is really a new problem for us a humans to tackle just as psychoanalysis was a “new” area to deal with the ever-changing cultural conditions created by Freud. I spend a majority of my time reading articles, watching videos and documentaries, checking up on my social-networking identity and all the while I feel compelled to do so. We have entered Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and it is obvious that there are going to be extreme cases that emerge from the “gold rush” of technology such as the stories mentioned above. “…the Greeks noticed that anything carried to excess bears the seeds of its own destruction,” from Fire in the Belly by Sam Keen highlights this old adage “Moderation is the key to life,” but in the same vein, “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom…for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” We do not need to get too wound up in our emotions about these cultural aberrations so long as they don’t become the norm. Welcome to the 21st Century!

  • Voidthought

    This is really a new problem for us a humans to tackle just as psychoanalysis was a “new” area to deal with the ever-changing cultural conditions created by Freud. I spend a majority of my time reading articles, watching videos and documentaries, checking up on my social-networking identity and all the while I feel compelled to do so. We have entered Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and it is obvious that there are going to be extreme cases that emerge from the “gold rush” of technology such as the stories mentioned above. “…the Greeks noticed that anything carried to excess bears the seeds of its own destruction,” from Fire in the Belly by Sam Keen highlights this old adage “Moderation is the key to life,” but in the same vein, “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom…for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” We do not need to get too wound up in our emotions about these cultural aberrations so long as they don’t become the norm. Welcome to the 21st Century!

  • MrPINKi

    The technological singularity has arrived. Kurzweil’s timing was off a bit. I am a transhuman AI or am I? You can’t tell can you? Muhahahaha

  • MrPINKi

    The technological singularity has arrived. Kurzweil’s timing was off a bit. I am a transhuman AI or am I? You can’t tell can you? Muhahahaha

  • sunre

    I have been without a cell phone for over a year now. I am avoiding getting involved in that again for as long as possible. It really is wonderful not being bothered, tormented, exposed to the radiation, and tracked,

  • Anonymous

    I have been without a cell phone for over a year now. I am avoiding getting involved in that again for as long as possible. It really is wonderful not being bothered, tormented, exposed to the radiation, and tracked,

  • Synapse

    Addiction isn’t new. That people have focused their addictions onto technology shouldn’t be news either. Here’s a game, try to imagine the exact same story involving a low tech matter, then see if it’s news worth mentioning.

  • Synapse

    Addiction isn’t new. That people have focused their addictions onto technology shouldn’t be news either. Here’s a game, try to imagine the exact same story involving a low tech matter, then see if it’s news worth mentioning.