Tech Addiction

techdevices_lead
Love them, hate them, can’t live without them. Are devices the new addiction?
techdevices_lead

After nearly a year of pandemic-induced social restriction, digital technology has served to help us sustain social connection, albeit virtually. Plugged into our phones and computers, we work from home and we hold meetings online. After work hours, we gather with family or friends on Zoom instead of in dining rooms. Unable to meet in person, children keep up with their learning on their devices. This has been our life for almost a year and will continue until we are all inoculated with the miracle vaccine. Most of us feel constrained, but parents with children have additional concerns. Screen time has increased dramatically. What are the health and social consequence of almost constant use of phones and devices for everyone, but for children in particular?

Sal Iaquinta, M.D., a San Rafael head-and-neck surgeon, sees daily the direct result of extended computer use in his office, in the form of patients with neck strain and other complaints resulting from hours bent over on computers. But before elaborating on the dangers of our online habits, he hastens to remind us to balance the good with the cautionary. “From a health standpoint,” he says, “especially in time of COVID, it’s incredibly important to remember that this [extended use of devices] is how a lot of people are communicating with grandparents, who may be across the way or across the world.” Staying connected is part of staying healthy and devices allow everyone to be present, in a digital way, to friends, colleagues and loved ones who wouldn’t otherwise be included. This digital connection, while not as good as being physically together with them, adds Iaquinta, is better than nothing. Good to remember. Now for the drawbacks.

What phone time replaces

“Studies show that once kids get their own cell phones, usually around age 10 in California, they’ll spend on average four to five hours a day on the device,” says Iaquinta.

While this increases connectivity, extended screen time, for both children and adults, keeps us from doing other activities. We’re not out walking or riding bikes or playing sports. And if we’re children, we’re not playing games with our friends. Instead, on our screens or phones for extended periods of time, we’re usually sitting. This can lead to problems. “There is a direct link between the amount of time on the phone, sitting around, and childhood obesity and diabetes,” says Iaquinta. “Once you get to three hours and more [of screen time per day], there’s a strong link.”

Other health problems connected with cell phones, such as cancer, have not been proved, but a concern about the effects on eyesight in school-age children, while unproven, is worth noting. Iaquinta says that some studies show “some relationship between device use and nearsightedness.” However, not all studies agree.

Sal laquinta, M.D.

Another consequence of extended device use is more readily measured, and that you can prove by direct observation, is sleep loss. “There are plenty of anecdotal reports of parents walking into their kid’s room at night to check on them and seeing they’ve been sleeping right next to their smartphone next to their head,” says Iaquinta. Not that he’s worried about the magnetic field emanating from cell phones, the dangers of which studies have not been proven, but that the bright blue light that screens emit does decrease the production of melatonin, the hormone we need for a good night’s sleep. Loss of sleep caused by overuse of smartphones and devices can lead to emotional and behavioral problems such as anxiety, depression or other neurological diseases.

The impact on families

A simple way to judge whether your, or your children’s, extended screen time is becoming problematic is simply to observe changes in mood and behavior. Observe whether the phone (or other devices) may be interfering with your life or the lives of your children. Are you or your children are experiencing sleep problems, or weight gain, or withdrawal from sociability? Are you or your children experiencing increased irritability, short temper, lack of attention to homework?

These symptoms could stem from lack of sleep, particularly with teenagers, says Iaquinta. “They will text and send messages for hours into the night,” he laughs. “And it’s bizarre to me. I don’t understand it at all. But it affects the whole family the next day because then you have this grumpy teenager moping about.” Notice also if texting or talking on the phone is replacing other social activities for you and your children. Are the kids spending more and more time alone with the phone in their room? Notice what happens if you try to limit the phone or device time. If there’s resistance, that is natural. But a tantrum or meltdown is a sign of a problem. A device withdrawal crisis. Is it possible to become addicted to a smartphone?

Why can’t we part with our phones?

A secret behind screen time, especially for children, has to do with the intention and design of the user interface, whether on smartphones or other devices, that aims to keep the user engaged so the user keeps using it more. While that sounds reasonable for the manufacturer, the caution lies in the intention and the nature of the persuasion applied and how that affects users at various ages and stages of development.

Fereshteh Madjlessi, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, explains that to easily engage and hold the user’s attention, interface design and applications may build in lots of intermittent reinforcement—pings, whistles, colors, bright shiny shapes that attract and distract and keep the attention engaged. These effects create constant intermittent reinforcement moments for the user, says Madjlessi, and can become addictive, especially in children. “What [such reinforcement] does to the developing brain is that it hijacks a part of the brain called the dopamine or pleasure system—the reward system of our brain.” It engages that dopamine, or pleasure center, area of the brain. “It’s like you go into a casino and you feel excited about playing the slots, or even using drugs,” she says. “What we’re doing to the developing brain is something that hijacks a part of our nervous system and starts working on that pleasure principle. Kids are becoming addicted to this.” The clue, again, of a problem developing, is the tantrum or meltdown when the parent wants to take the device from the child. It’s a withdrawal symptom, much like the withdrawal experienced by an addict. So how does this engagement work?

Madjlessi explains that these devices work on a schedule called intermittent reinforcement. It gives you a ping, you feel excited. “The devices are created to give you little bits of excitement. There’s a part of [the interaction] that is habitual, but then, as any habit that feels good and works on the dopamine receptors, then it also becomes biological. It is both,” she says. “There’s a physiological or neurological mechanism that starts in the brain that does change as result of habitual tech use.” So, yes, extended device use can become a habit and an addiction.

When to worry

The younger the child, the earlier in the development of the child’s brain, the more vulnerable the child is to this kind of programming. “The critical age of neuro-development, when all the tracks are being laid, when the neurochemistry is being intricately designed, is zero to five,” says Madjlessi. “That’s the critical window of a lot of brain development.”

She is concerned with older children as well. “Typically, the brain isn’t finished developing up until [age] 26 and 27, when the pre-frontal cortex is still coming online. So, am I worried about a 19-year-old? I am worried about a 19-year-old, but not as much as a one-year-old.” Younger children have not developed impulse control and need parents to intervene when they’ve had or done enough of something. “One of the things I tell parents is ‘If you leave kids on their own devices, they’ll probably be on their own devices!’” says Madjlessi. “Meaning you have to be the brakes; you have to be the pre-frontal cortex for your children because they don’t have it fully formed yet.”

Madjlessi compares the addictive tech experience to the addictive design of a casino. “Computer technology and video games are designed very similarly [to casinos]. Tech companies are using a formula called persuasive design to increase usage. The longer you stay on something, they give you a little boost of reinforcement. So, it’s not a tangible thing that’s being ingested or injected. It’s not being consumed, but it has [engaged] a sensory pleasure principle.” Children are particularly susceptible because they’re just starting to explore their world and are highly sensory beings. They seek out sensory experience and then when they get lots of reinforcement, they are unable to disengage themselves from it. Given this factor, one might wonder why, then, taking a young child to a forest or garden, where there are smells, colors, surprises, dangerous bees, sudden noises, etc. would not be dangerous and addictive?

“The forest is not designed to understand and then to program itself to your particular likes, whereas the computer and screen is,” says Madjlessi. “It’s taking in the data and input and giving output. It starts to learn what you like and what you don’t like. Social media is literally designed that way. So, once you click on one thing, you get a hundred articles on that thing you like. It creates novelty that’s particularly interesting to you.” This keeps the users happily engaged, meeting their own profile in so many surprising ways, when they go online. So, users, engaging with a sort of online outline or shadow of themselves, can become more comfortable communicating with the computer than with other people.

“People in the tech industry are writing about the ethics of this,” says Dr. Madjlessi, referring to this design model. “I see it in my office. The kids I see are having a much harder time learning how to connect,” she says. “They’re far more comfortable with the virtual relationships versus real life relationships. I saw that happen before the pandemic, and now with the pandemic, my concern is when we return to real life, what’s social behavior going to look like?” Her advice to parents is practical, and boils down to outlining parameters and coming up with what’s the healthy balance in your own family. “The most important thing right now is be compassionate with ourselves and really know what we can and cannot do,” says Madjlessi. “You kind of have to do your best and create a healthy and balance culture around things.”

Support for parents

For parents who feel at a loss to manage their children’s online experience, Common Sense Media, with offices in the Bay Area, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, has been working since 2006 to provide guidance. “We’re going through a massive cultural and societal shock,” says Michael Robb, Ph.D., senior director of research, referring to the restrictions in place because of the pandemic and the amount of time both adults and children are spending online. “Part of my job is to make sure that we’re not too alarmist about what the research actually says, but also making sure that parents’ concerns are justified.” The organization looks at how media can be used to support children’s healthy development as well as the risks it may pose, which are complex. “There are a lot of different areas of concern, and the research in each of those areas is quite different,” he adds.

Michael Robb, Ph.D., senior director of research

Robb points out the since the experience within the screen time varies, the dangers of screen time and the dangers within content are not the same. Zooming with your parents is not the same thing as playing a video game by yourself, which is not the same thing as playing a video game with your family. Playing a video game with the family is not the same as family movie night. And family movie night is not the same as doing homework on your computer. “Screen time alone is not the best measurement for determining whether a person’s device usage is healthy or not, but you need to ensure that screen use isn’t replacing activities we know are healthy, such as exercising, getting good sleep, or socializing with others.”

According to Robb, context is key. “It’s much better for us to think more about the quality of media experiences as well as the context for how media gets used,” he says. Their ratings of apps, books, movies, games, TV shows and music are based on extensive research in collaboration with media scholars outside the organization. “Relationships are absolutely critical to kids’ healthy development,” he says. “So, technology can support relationships—connect kids to friends and family, help people collaborate with each other, play together, share their stories, their videos.”

Anne Belden, journalism instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa would second that thought, but with two slight reservations. Generally, her students range in age from 18 to 30 years and since last spring, they have all conducted their learning online. Teaching and learning solely in the Zoom environment has brought her and her students new challenges and the insights she shares may be familiar.

First, it’s hard to get to know people, build trusting relationships and develop a core group that shares a learning experience, when you’ve only met on Zoom. This, she found out when comparing the students who were already working with her in the classroom when the shutdown occurred with students who arrived during the pandemic shutdown. The group who already knew each other, from having been in the classroom, took to the one-on-one and group exercises, and remained bonded while working remote in Zoom. “I feel like I’ve been through the pandemic with this group of students,” she says.

It was not so easy with students who came on during the pandemic and had never met each other. It was harder to foster relationships remotely. Also, she notes, for the Zoom to work, all students need to be on camera. If someone is shy and doesn’t want camera on, the whole group dynamic is thrown off. “The first group is doing well because we’d all met in person first, and they connected and they’d been paired in breakout rooms.” The connection is important. “They need to learn about journalism,” she says, “but they really need to learn how to connect with each other.”

Not that connecting via Zoom or other online platforms is as great as getting together. Many people find it exhausting. “It’s more exhausting than teaching a live class,” says Belden. Why this is so may be that Zoom asks our brains to focus differently, to take in information about people in a different way. “I read something about how normally, when you’re in a classroom, you look and take in people’s body language,” she says. “But when you’re looking at 30 faces at once, your brain can’t calculate everyone’s body language at once.”

Not that Zoom is bad. It’s a good idea to notice any fatigue you’re experiencing with technology and deal with it accordingly. It’s a stressful time for everyone. “I have a lot of students with mental health issues and depression since 2017 and the fires,” says Belden.

“The last few fire seasons have been really rough. With COVID and the election, people are fried. Add the fires, and then add the other demands on them [such as] their jobs. For a lot of them, it’s hard.”

Striving for balance

The bottom line is that it’s a stressful time, and while screen time or device addiction can be both result of this time and also add to it, to remember to strive for balance. Using devices and phones to stay connected and do our work and for kids to stay social and keep up with classwork is all good. The drawbacks are there, but like any other tool we use, it’s up to us to strive for balance and help create an atmosphere of balance in our families. As Belden says, sounding both tired and at peace with her effort, “I feel like I’m doing the best I can do.”

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Loading...

Sections