{"id":9534,"date":"2019-10-08T05:05:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T12:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nebulous-oyster.flywheelsites.com\/?p=9534"},"modified":"2019-11-07T08:24:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T16:24:15","slug":"digital-addiction-living-flat-life-high-def-screens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennifermargulis.net\/digital-addiction-living-flat-life-high-def-screens\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Addiction: Living a Flat Life on High-Def Screens"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s your time?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No, not your latest 5K run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m getting really personal here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about the time on your iPhone,<\/strong> that program that tells you much \u201cscreen time\u201d you\u2019ve been using. Addiction is a word that makes a lot of people cringe but digital addiction is real and getting worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

When my friend Jason came over the other day, he ate lunch with us with his phone face up at the table, checked it five times, and interrupted the conversation to send two messages. Sound familiar?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your iPhone report is likely to surprise (and maybe horrify you).<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you looked at it recently?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like a breathalyzer for digital addiction. Like the family man who stumbles out of the bar at 1 a.m. and knows he\u2019s had a few too many, you probably already know you are digitally drunk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I struggle with digital overuse. For myself, my husband, and my 15-year old. I think about and write about and pursue vibrant living with great enthusiasm, but a world focused on high-def is anything but vibrant. My name is Jennifer and I have a problem with digital addiction. Overusing my phone and my computer is one of my problems. Is it yours?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Digital addiction is worse for adults<\/b><\/h2>\n

The average American kid spends as much as seven hours a day on a screen, according to the American Academy of Pediatricians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But adults are actually spending <\/span>nearly twice as much time as youngsters<\/span><\/i> consuming digital media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve <\/span>written about before<\/span><\/a>, I suspect it\u2019s not our children we should be worrying about, but ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

A survey of media consumption habits <\/span><\/a>by the Nielson Company found that in the first quarter of 2017 the average Baby Boomer spent eleven hours and 12 minutes a day\u2014more time than they spent sleeping\u2014consuming media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019re we all doing for that many hours?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Nielson, we\u2019re watching TV, playing videogames, surfing the Internet, playing DVDs, and using smartphones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My eyes hurt just thinking about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or maybe my eyes hurt because I\u2019ve been in front of a\u2014you guessed it\u2014computer screen for about seven hours already today, researching, reading on-line, and writing this article, as well as checking and answering emails, and posting updates (some about screen addiction) on social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The United States of Distraction?\u00a0 <\/span>Check.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Too much time on screens?\u00a0 <\/span>Check.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But digital addiction?\u00a0<\/span>Are we, in fact, addicted to this brave new digital world?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Consumers, sure, but are we addicts?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Scientists, researchers, and medical doctors have long argued about the definition of addiction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While this was a word once reserved almost exclusively for illegal drug use and alcoholism, most experts, including psychiatrists, now recognize that we humans can also become addicted to harmful behaviors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several studies have showed, through imaging technology, that the brains of pathological gamblers actually look similar to the brains of hard-core drug addicts\u2014showing impacted impulse-control and heightened activity in pleasure centers of the brain when presented with monetary rewards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2013 the medical establishment has recognized something that loved ones of those addicted to gambling, pornography, shopping, food, and even television, have long known to be true: These \u201csofter\u201d addictions are anything but.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like addiction to opioids, meth, and alcohol, addiction to digital media can actually compromise our health, make us miserable, and get us to a point where we find it impossible to tear ourselves away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe you think it\u2019s unfair to compare meth addiction to computer addiction. But addiction is a spectrum. When you\u2019re on the severe end of the addiction spectrum, the substance or behavior starts to completely destroy your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

My friend Dima\u2019s son\u2019s best friend killed himself less than a year ago. He was spending over 9 hours a day gaming on-line.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even when we\u2019re not on the severe end of the addiction spectrum, digital consumption has the ability to excite us, over-stimulate us, and make us irritable to the point of violent objection when we are forced to stop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like a drug addiction, it can push us to act irresponsibly and irrationally, leave us craving more, and impact our lives with sometimes devastating and lasting negative consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason why Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, M.D., Director of UCLA\u2019s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior calls screens \u201celectronic cocaine.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D., a New York-based addiction specialist and author of the 2016 book <\/span>Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking Our Kids and How to Break the Trance, <\/span><\/i>describes how his patient found her son one night when he was supposed to be sleeping:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026sitting up in bed staring wide-eyed, his bloodshot eyes looking into the distance as his glowing iPad lay next to him. Beside herself with panic, Susan had to shake the boy repeatedly to snap him out of it. Distraught, she could not understand how her once-healthy and happy little boy had become so addicted to [Minecraft] that he wound up in a catatonic stupor,\u201d Kardaras writes in an article in the New York Post.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from Dr. Kadaras:<\/span><\/p>\n