Our QUANTUM COMPUTER CRASH-(COLLISION?)-COURSE is heading into it’s final week with our performance of BOUNDED IN A NUTSHELL coming up THIS SATURDAY…
Apparently, there is a 28-day program in England for technology addicts.
Are you getting the shakes or the cold-sweats if you go a day without your iPhone or checking your Twitter account? It’s possible you need to get in touch with these folks. And – if the research is solid – you’re not alone in your plight.
BBC News reports:
“The programme is designed for young people who spend large amounts of time each day playing computer games or using social network websites. When deprived they become “chronically agitated and irritable” said the treatment’s founder Dr Richard Graham.
Dr Graham’s treatment programme lasts 28 days if done intensely.
However it is not designed to wean people entirely off using technology, he told BBC News. “It’s not realistic to have an abstinence programme,” he said.
At the moment the treatment is only available to private patients at the Capio Nightingale hospital, where Dr Graham is Lead Young Person’s Technology Addiction Consultant.
“The number of genuine technology addicts is fairly low but it could rise with online gaming where, unlike standalone gaming, the game never stops,” said Mark Griffiths, Professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University.”
The programme is designed for young people who spend large amounts of time each day playing computer games or using social network websites.
When deprived they become “chronically agitated and irritable” said the treatment’s founder Dr Richard Graham.
Dr Graham’s treatment programme lasts 28 days if done intensely.
However it is not designed to wean people entirely off using technology, he told BBC News.
“It’s not realistic to have an abstinence programme,” he said.
At the moment the treatment is only available to private patients at the Capio Nightingale hospital, where Dr Graham is Lead Young Person’s Technology Addiction Consultant.
“The number of genuine technology addicts is fairly low but it could rise with online gaming where, unlike standalone gaming, the game never stops,” said Mark Griffiths, Professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University.”
There’s also an interesting article posted in last year’s PurePakastani.com that dealt with young people’s use and abuse of cell-phones.
From the article:
“Recent studies have shown that young heavy mobile phone users have slower minds and poorer memory capacities in comparison with those who use the mobile phone moderately. They show slower responses and are also are likely to commit more mistakes.”
I don’t think the technology is the problem. We’ve used and abused technology for centuries. Addictive personalities will find ANYTHING to get fixated on.
What’s fascinating about all this is that – you can’t really be abstinent from technology all-together in this age. So – addictions like this become similar to the struggles of – say – an eating disorder. You can’t remove food from a person entirely. That’s just not possible.
When so much of our lives are led online – how do you remove that aspect from someone’s existence entirely? It’s an age-old question: At what point do we become so dependent on the tools that we’ve made that they threaten to subsume us?
And is that okay?
We developed farming implements that we depended on for our survival for eons. Is this just another step? Is this just another set of tools that we’ve built that are going to aid our social evolution?
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Tags: technology addiction
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