A series of alarms pierce your eardrums. You stretch your hands to snooze them. Two minutes later, it goes off again. Forced awake, it’s now time to hold it in your hand and check out a few things. You scroll quickly to check notifications, weather and your schedule for the day. From then on, your phone becomes one of your daily essentials, as it joins the very much needed tablet and laptop. 

Every day from the moment you wake up, you are part of the technology-driven world. Digital media and electronic devices make obsolete the attractions of yesteryears: radio or television. More importantly, digital media has invaded our lives by offering us presumably convenience of every kind: online shopping, social media and different ways of entertainment. Yet, behind the ease of its multi-use design, digital media has taken us hostage. Consuming our time, focus, and energy to a point that we feel at a loss and disconnected if and when we do not have the access to it, hence cautioning an immediate remedial restriction against digital addiction.

How problematic is digital addiction in our contemporary world? According to Moment, a time-tracking app that monitors more than 4.8 million users, an average person spends nearly four hours, one-sixth of their time, on their phone every day. Studies have also found that excessive social media use leads to sleep deprivation, anxiety, loneliness and depression. Psychologists and psychiatric researchers agree that this addiction to digital devices, or “Internet Addiction Disorder” (IAD) is affecting about 1.5 to 8.26 percent of people in the United States and Europe. In Asian countries, such as China and South Korea, where digital addiction is more pronounced, treatments are provided to ease this public health threat.

One of the reasons why we love technology so much is because it offers gratifying rewards. According to Adam Alter, Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, digital media offers users a feeling of excitement and the anticipation of waiting for this rewarding excitement to happen again with every refresh. Digital media gives users infinite opportunities for that. Simply scrolling down on the endless feeds or pages where content is continuously posted and updated will be, theoretically, engaging for any user.

Other forms of digital entertainment such as Netflix automatically move on to the next episode, thus making it difficult for viewers to stop viewing. In fact, the level of prolonged excitement is similar to the effects of smoking or doing drugs as the addiction triggers the dopamine system in the human brain and reinforces the habits. Like substance addiction, tech addiction is a form of behavioral addiction that arises from the unpredictability of the content on the screens. Also like drugs, the rewards from digital addiction are delivered right away. As a technology dependent society, we now face a more serious type of addiction as the products of digital addictions are more irresistible and easier to develop.

Supporters of digital media argue that it is the best product ever invented because it gives the users continuous and updated content anytime and anywhere. This product, however, was not even used by an inventor of this modern-day technology, Steve Jobs. In his late 2010 interview with journalist Nick Bilton of the New York Times, Steve Jobs openly said that his children had never used the iPad. The fact that a tech giant imposed restrictions on his children over the use of digital technology should say something about his insider understanding of digital addiction and its serious effects, even as he profited off of it.

While it is indisputable that the design features of digital devices effectively make us fall for and be addicted to them, and while the profit margins for these digital apps and platforms are high, making it unlikely that they will stop making more and more features to hook us, we need to be more aware and cautious of our reliance on technology. As digital addiction affects young teens the most, some worried parents have protested against Facebook’s Messenger Kids feature. Some concerned others have also set up a non-profit organization, Center for Humane Technology, dedicated to lobbying and advocating for more ethical designs. In Canada, the resistance lies in our conscious awareness of the unfortunate impacts of technology on us and the insight that as long as we feed the beast of digital addiction, the beast will destroy us!

References :

Bilton, Nick. “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2014, nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html? _r=0.

Cash, Hilarie, et al. “Internet Addiction: A Brief Summary of Research and Practice.” Current Psychiatry Reviews, Bentham Science Publishers, Nov. 2012, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480687/.

Liem, Steve. “China Limits Children's Video Game Playing to 3 Hours a Week.” Osce Master, 8 Oct. 2021, oscemaster.com/china-limits-childrens-video-game-playing-to-3-hours-a-week.ht ml.

Price, Catherine. “Putting down Your Phone May Help You Live Longer.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Apr. 2019, nytimes.com/2019/04/24/well/mind/putting-down-your-phone-may-help-you-li ve-longer.html.

“Trapped – the Secret Ways Social Media Is Built to Be Addictive (and What You Can Do to Fight Back).” Shadow Truth, 21 Jan. 2021, shadowtruth.org/trapped-the-secret-ways-social-media-is-built-to-be-addictive-a nd-what-you-can-do-to-fight-back/.