Sergio Weizenegger is a young Argentine computer fanatic who managed to recognize how much he depended on technology. He wrote an article telling his testimony about his dependence and what made him realize the danger he was running. One morning, at two o'clock, the electricity went out in his area. Realizing that now he could not do anything but sleep he realized that it was nothing without electricity and his computer. The electricity only went away for one hour, but for him, it was as if a full day had passed. If a crisis or power shock happens, or if something happens to the satellites that are out there, the world will become chaos. The world would be paralyzed, and many would be saying and thinking that the world came to an end because the life of many would not make sense because it was based on a virtual reality.
The stores are starting to go the way of the dinosaurs. Although this is more common in the United States than in Colombia, it is true that people have stopped shopping in stores, replacing them with online purchases that are quicker and simpler. Without a cell phone, people feel naked. People can check their mail, messages, and activity on social networks every 3 minutes and have become addicted to their cell phones. The fact that we do not realize the danger that runs shows us how blind we are to technology; we no longer see it as a good resource, and instead, we have a perception that this is just one more element of our environment and we dare to say that it is a necessity. Sadly, technology has been labeled as a necessity in society. Screens have colonized our lives. In the United States, about half of adults have a Smartphone and more than a third have a digital tablet. There are companies that are promoting the cure for technological dependence by marketing products to block Wi-Fi networks and make withdrawals without internet.
Anyone who walks through a university campus, a restaurant or a plaza will realize: there are more people typing on a cell phone, answering email on a Blackberry or multi-tapping on an iPod than talking. Blog readers confess that they use their devices while they eat while driving and even in the bathroom. Some experts begin to warn that technologies - gadgets, the internet, cell phones - are as addictive as narcotic substances. Among them John O'Neill, director of the department of addictions at Menninger Clinic in Houston, who claims to be discovering in technophiles the same behaviors that are treated in drug addicts and alcoholics. I think that all of them (technology addicts) share the same components as those who become addicted to alcohol and drugs, in the fact that we see that they cannot get off the device, and cannot stop using it. Even if it entails serious consequences, "said the expert.We can overload technology, and we could suffer serious consequences in our relationships." But O'Neill is not the only one who thinks that way. There is already an institution in the state of Washington, which has scientifically classified technological addiction as causing the same degree of deterioration of life in society as alcoholism, gambling, and drug addiction. The center estimates that of the 189 million Internet users, between 6 and 10% are addicted.
Some technological advances, such as cell phones and push-mail email distribution technology (used by the BlackBerry and the iPhone, among others) make it more difficult to define the time of being "in line" of intimate or personal time, and they extended the "office hours" without limit. The BlackBerry boom and its service of total availability to receive emails wirelessly earned the device the nickname "CrackBerry," parodying the name of crack, an illegal substance derived from cocaine. Another indicator is the growing interest of the general public in digital products and services, including "digital lives" through games, chats, and forums, as well as blogs, photologs, and moblogs. O'Neill told Reuters that the problem could be solved by teaching people to limit their "connectivity" to use technology healthily. According to the specialist, some signs that he is suffering from an "unhealthy" relationship with technology are the following: spend less time with friends and family to answer emails, answer "texts" or surf the internet and use text messages, calls or emails when it would be more appropriate to talk face to face.
While technology has allowed us to interact with people instantly whether they are far away or nearby, it has also had an impact on how we communicate with one another on an intimate, face to face level. Communication online, especially with the ability to remain anonymous, has hindered the ability of many to build relationships in person. Often, the persona they carry online is vastly different from that in real life. That said, electronics have -- in a way -- isolated us from the outside world. Electronic devices, computers, in particular, can desensitize and dehumanize users by encouraging hostility amongst online users. Rather than experiencing thing in person, people can access media and news in the palm of their hands.
A poll conducted by Slate indicated that adults from ages 25-40 who consider themselves to be lonely have doubled since the 1980s. This research suggests that online users do not have the same level of happiness as those that go outside have. In a sense, texting has hindered one's ability to communicate on a surface level properly. In situations that require immediate responses when faced with another can and has been proven to have deteriorated the more electronic devices are used. Texting has also affected how people speak with one another. The growing use of social media has opened up a plethora of new words being created every day and helped develop and shape modern day communication. Abbreviations for everyday words are being created and used to make life simpler, but is it making it easy for people to socialize? The answer is no. Rather than help, it has impaired the ability of some to function properly when it comes time to write formal essays and in school.
Their ability to portray thoughts into words have become increasingly harder when confronted with deadlines and real-life situations that have an impact. Without the ease of typing something up right then and there, pen and paper have almost become a thing of the past and consequently has an impact the performance people have today. Many of the researches done on the effects electronic devices have on face-to-face communication has shown negative results. For instance, while in a naturalistic field experiment, researchers found that conversations in the absence of mobile communication technologies were rated as significantly superior compared with those in the presence of a mobile device (Misra, Cheng, Genevie, & Yuan, 2014). On the flip side, when put in a room with another human being without the presence of an electronic device, people who did not have a mobile device near them showed a higher level of both empathy and sympathy when indulged in a conversation; even when faced with someone who they shared a close relationship with. The lack of face-to-face interactions, especially when it starts in early ages, can have a lot of consequences in the future. As children grow up in the presence of electronics, they are influenced at the most critical stages of their life on how they are going to survive and integrate into society. In a way, the use of electronics has promoted the rise of reclusive behavior in people, mainly teens.
A poll that was conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, back in 2014, reported having found that over 89% of adults and 75% of children that participated had an electronic device in their room, whether it be a tablet, Smartphone, or television (AbuDagga 1). Research has also been done on this trending epidemic with the testing of animals and the most prominent study that was conducted was when being kept awake with electronics, then there is a risk of heart failure, heart disease along with insomnia related problems too. The artificial light that is produced by these devices confuses the brain into believing it is still daytime and therefore causes it to produce less than half of your bodys melatonin, aka the hormone your body produces to tell the body that it is time to enter a sleep state and maintain it. While the effects the lights have depended on how close or far the device is from the user's face, the light itself is the about the same intensity as a room light alone. The uses of such a powerful stimulant before bed can cause what is known as behaviorally induced insufficiently sleep syndrome which is chronic sleep deprivation. It is caused by an individuals volitional restriction of sleep as they ignore their bodies need for beauty sleep and, instead, choose to stay awake and impede their natural sleep cycle. This is exceptionally evident in adolescents as a recent study showed, that nearly 60 percent of American adolescents are not getting the recommended number of hours of sleep for their age (AbuDagga 1). The use of technology also affects ones health by creating higher stress levels.
Works Cited
AbuDagga, Azza. Devices Bad for Children's Sleep. . Electronic Media Consumer Health
Complete , AbuDagga, Azza, eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid
Mobile Phone Affects Cerebral Blood Flow in Humans. Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow &
Metabolism , journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1038/sj.jcbfm.9600279.
The IPhone Effect. Environment and Behavior ,
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916514539755?journalCode=eaba.
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