Sunday, April 29, 2012

Technology addiction

[Thanks to TTL]

I don't know, really. But there's something to it. I forget who it was that wrote about a young woman she met, college-aged, this girl was tapping away, texting or tweeting while talking to her. And she admitted that she was unable to *not* do it! And this was not a "sick" girl, she was honor roll student and everything.



It seems this guy, though he has a point, is a bit loose in his thinking, for example he says that The Singularity is when we embed tech into our bodies.

I think that it's important that we don't realize that tech can be addictive and then decide that technology is a "bad thing". Because *anything* can be an addiction. Work can be an addiction. Exercise can be an addiction. Pleasing people can be an addiction.
An addiction is when something becomes too important a solution to our inner pain, which we all have, and it takes over our life. But the problem is not the addiction itself, it's what drove you to it. That's why addictions are so hard to cure, especially without finding a substitute addiction.

4 comments:

Russ said...

Wow, that "hall of mirrors" in the video background is quite distracting! He does bring up a few good points, but I agree, his presentation could be more concise.

I'm reading the Sherry Turkle book that he refers to ( http://amzn.com/0465010210 ) Alone Together and so far it's quite good.

Also, a good read by best selling author Jonathan Franzen, on how technology is providing an alternative to love, can be found here:

http://nyti.ms/lhxowh

Anna said...

Well, seeing this coming up, maybe the shadow of a World War III isn't that frightening: at least, technology will be held back for a while. :)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

No, wars tend to speed up big sectors of technology development. So we'll get the worst of both worlds. :-)

TC [Girl] said...

I forget who it was that wrote about a young woman she met, college-aged, this girl was tapping away, texting or tweeting while talking to her.

I think it was [NY] Laurie. Couldn't find it but remember the "conversation."

@Russ, TTL, & Eo: thanks for the info.