Non-opioid addiction

I came across this story in the New York Times yesterday on the effects of digital addiction—both mental and physical. The specific focus of the article is on mobile phones, which have essentially become the always-pumping dope syringe most people carry around with them—including to bed and to the toilet, which…ugh.

There have been plenty of studies on the loss of actual human connections when people disappear down the virtual connection rabbit hole of social media, along with hand wringing and advice. For example, “distracted walking” has been A Thing for several years, partly exacerbated by the Pokémon Go lunacy; pedestrians bump into other pedestrians, smack themselves on light stands, fall off curbs and walk into moving traffic while they’re busy scrolling through their Twitter feed or texting.

About five or six years ago I was at a Panera Bread in San José, Calif., and watched as a mother, father and two kids sat at one of the big tables, each engrossed in the screen of his or her device. Not talking, not paying attention to their food. That was the first time I’d noticed it, and since then it’s become the norm, not the exception.

What completely wigs me out is that this kind of behavior happens at home, during family meals. I recall with great discomfort some unpleasant dinner conversations in my family home, but the notion of replacing actual realtime verbal interchanges between multiple participants with heads-down finger poking at screens just…well, it wigs me out. (The picture of what Mom would have done if anyone had showed up for dinner and plopped a book in front of our plate is even more unpleasant than those conversations. We were every one of us avid readers. But at the table? No.)

(Also: nothing says "I'm hoping there are much more amusing people than you queuing up to text or call me" like a clutch of people pitching up at a restaurant and putting their mobile phones on the table. Face up or face down, doesn't matter. That device is a clear message that its owner doesn't rate your ability to capture and retain his/her attention. At all.)

And don’t get me started on convening meetings where you’re constantly repeating yourself to a roomful of people tapping furiously at laptop keyboards or mobile devices, because what’s going on anywhere else is ever so much more important than what’s going on in that room.

Well, back to the NYT story. That stat on vehicular accidents—25% of accidents in the United States are caused by the driver talking or texting on a mobile phone. This means that no matter how religious you may be about putting your device out of sight/sound, you have to assume that the drivers around you are squirreling around with them, and you have to be extra super vigilant for them. “Inattentional blindness” seems much too benign a term to apply to people making deliberate choices to focus on their quasi-imaginary friends instead of paying attention to the operation of 2000 pounds of lethal equipment in the immediate dynamic environment of traffic.

The other point I found interesting is the one about “text neck”—actual physiological damage caused by sitting with our heads bent over a screen. I feel it myself when I use my mobile for checking Twitter on my morning and afternoon Metro commutes. I try to prop my phone up on one of my bags, but it invariably starts sagging into my lap, and I definitely feel it in my neck.

A while ago I introduced you to Anastasia Dedyukina, who’s on a mission to get people to step away from their devices and just, you know, live fully in the present. Last month she ran a #DigitalDetox challenge and posted one- to two-minute videos on steps you can take to detach from your device. If you’d like to try some of her tips, go to her YouTube channel. Each video includes the supporting neuroscience for why you’d probably be better off following the day’s challenge.

The time to defeat inattentional blindness is…now.