Issue 545 Addiction to electronics March 11, 2015

Are we addicted to our electronics?  It is a ponderous question.  So let's self-reflect to see if we really are.

Signs of potential addiction:  Do you look at your phone almost constantly?  Do you rush to grab your phone the minute you hear the notification pop up?  Basically you may be getting addicted to your phone/the internet.  The biggest sign of addiction to me, is that you text the person next to you.  This is not socializing in person anymore, but semi isolationist as you try to protect yourself through the barrier of technology.  They see a plain piece of paper (electronic paper so to speak) with words written down.  There is no body language, no inflection, nothing but words.  In one way it makes the conversation somewhat more authentic as there is no extra fluff to the conversation, but in the end people stop knowing how to act in front of others.  And even worse, all you do and say is now on public record.

Now is this really an addiction:  I really am not 100% sure that this is actually an addiction.  It is more to me that people are starved for social interaction and that is because people fear rejection.  So the people jumping on a notification for a "like" or a "comment" is just them wanting more interaction and conversation with people.  So that leaves people who can only talk in front of each other via texts.  These are people who lack the social skills to actually start and keep a conversation up.  It is not really addiction in my eyes.  People just have trouble communicating for various reasons.  Thus the fall back electronic means becomes the sole way for them to communicate properly.  You can even say a person's true personality comes out through their electronic devices for they may actually become more honest and engaging than they are with traditional human to human interaction.  

Conclusion:  What do you think?  Are people simply starved of their ability to properly communicate, or are they really addicted.  Consequently, this contributes to our lack of privacy on the internet as we post pictures and comment through blogs, and Facebook like services. So our level of social interaction increases on the internet when our preferred methods of social interaction are electronic.  I personally think that we are just struggling, but you may think differently.  Hopefully we are not addicted, but this is just me being hopeful.