Why technologists are limiting their families' screen time
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Almost every week there are stories of problematic tech use. The British tabloids last year reported that a nine-year-old girl was so addicted to playing the hit video game Fortnite that she wouldn’t leave the couch to go to the toilet. Her parents found her awake in the middle of the night, playing the game, sitting on a urine-soaked cushion.
Rosenthal rattles off other troubling anecdotes. “I have parents threatening to cut off the internet or remove their teenager’s smartphones, and I have had people threaten suicide because their life is very much centred around it,” he says. Treating excessive tech usage can be more challenging than treating other conditions, according to Rosenthal. You can remove alcohol or other drugs from a user’s life, but the internet is pervasive in modern workplaces and homes, meaning people can’t abstain. Rosenthal says technology addiction symptoms are similar to other addictions. “It’s just that they are able to hide more because society doesn’t see it as a problem.”
Everybody looking at how kids are interacting with this stuff sense that something is wrong.
Tristan Harris
However, Jocelyn Brewer, a Sydney psychologist, argues the evidence for tech addiction as a standalone disorder is weak. “Moral panic isn’t new,” she says. “It’s always about, ‘Let’s save these kids’, when I’m not sure most adults understand why most kids use technology or why Fortnite is so popular.”
Brewer advocates the concept of “digital nutrition”: a framework to help parents and consumers regulate the use of tech in their lives. Like food, tech can be nourishing, but consume too much of it and you will get sick. “It’s not about digital detoxing because tech isn’t toxic.”
Article source: https://www.smh.com.au/world/africa/how-much-would-you-pay-for-a-moon-rock-20181011-p5093i.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_world
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