Digital Heroin

[Ba-ba-Ra]

Every Parent needs to listen to this. An Addiction Expert explains what happens to a young persons brain when they spend to much time on the screen. He actually saw a young person who could know longer tell the difference between reality and what he's been watching.

Causes depression,hyper stimulation, and also erectile dysfunction among other things.


https://vimeo.com/203753283

[AutumnW]

Thanks so much for posting this, Babara. I wonder where it will end and what it will lead to. It's almost like a weird metamorphosis from baby to child to some kind of larval being. This would be great if they emerged from it, butterfly style.

[Mike]

just yesterday i was with my sister and my niece, and my sister took my niece's tablet away from her because it was homework time....

what followed can't really be described as a tantrum. it was something else altogether. she began shrieking in a way that suggested a murder. her arms and legs flailed madly as she ran from this room to that one, unsure of what to do with herself in the face of this great tragedy. at the top of her lungs she declared her hate for my sister (her mom) in mad, rapid fire speech...all in between the hideous shrieking and wailing. i've never seen anything like it.

at the time i was thinking that these digital toys were akin to crack for kids. but heroin is just as suitable.

[AutumnW]

Kind of like this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_MNMKyI3j8

[Mike]

Kind of like this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_MNMKyI3j8

the degree to which that is horrifying vis a vis humorous is still unknown to me...various parts of me are disagreeing all at once:)

but yeah, sorta like that haha!

[Denise/Dizi]

Is it really any different than when we had televisions as children? Aside from the fact that we couldn't take them with us everywhere we went?

I would think that if parents stopped letting their technology rear their children, perhaps kids would be more engaged. I made sure my kids didn't melt in front of a television, and I am doing the same whenever I can with their kids..

As my profile image shows me holding my phone HAHAHA...

[O Donna]

Teens Who Murder Over Loss of Phones, Video Games
Teens obsessed with phones, games unable to cope with being cut off by parents. (https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=6788681&page=1)

It's an older story but highlights much of what the OP conveys, though thie article is an extreme example.

[Ba-ba-Ra]

Kind of like this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_MNMKyI3j8


Thanks for posting AutumnW. I don't know what's more shocking, what happens when the phone is taken from the baby or that the parent is treating it like a joke!

Here's another showing how addictive and that it's been by design. Facebook, for example, has made us overly aware of what others think of us by their" liking system" so we are constantly comparing ourselves to other people's lives.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmEDAzqswh8&feature=emb_logo

[Pam]

Is it really any different than when we had televisions as children? Aside from the fact that we couldn't take them with us everywhere we went?

I would think that if parents stopped letting their technology rear their children, perhaps kids would be more engaged. I made sure my kids didn't melt in front of a television, and I am doing the same whenever I can with their kids..

As my profile image shows me holding my phone HAHAHA...


I think the difference could be compared to having a glass of wine with dinner vs always having a flask in your pocket and using it regularly.

[Denise/Dizi]

Agreed.. And it will only get worse as the technology is shuffled out to the public like candy. I rarely have my phone outside of my handbag, but in that trip I needed it, so we could all find each other.

But it is stunning when you pay attention to how many people seem to be immobilized without their tech these days. not only the phones, but the earbuds for hands free, the smart watches, etc.

[PurpleLama]

Sorry, but every adult should look hard in the mirror.

Do you think you are immune? This is not just about the kids.

[shaberon]

I believe all forms of it are absolutely devastating.

Yes, the same thing was in myself. As an early adolescent, I had the then-new cable tv and game console, and realized I was being swallowed alive. There was no option but to give away the game (which was mine) and step away from the tv (which wasn't).

The difference with a pc is that it just sits where it is, and I can leave it alone for...*gasp*...days at a time, easily. The problem now is I cannot find another human being who is not nose down in a phone every chance. There is no one left.

What is gone now, that used to be big, is skating rinks. Does anyone remember this? You were actually getting a form of semi-exercise while being confronted by a crowd of other people. No mercy, no escape. These days, at least in the U. S., you'd go straight to jail for raising a kid the way we were.

Crack is probably a better comparison, since a smidge of heroin lasts eight hours, but people keep reaching for a crack pipe over and over to "feel like the first time". Either way, it is all a replacement of some part of an organic being by something extraneous and harmful.

[Ti]

Sorry, but every adult should look hard in the mirror.

Do you think you are immune? This is not just about the kids.

I was a teenager when I first remember it happening. The internet went out and I broke. I didn't know what to do so I just cried uncontrollably. (I am 30 as of this post) The next few years that followed could only be described as addiction. I recognized this, somehow, and chose a very drastic measure when I left home at 23, knowing that if I did nothing I would always be an internet addict. This choice is likely the one that's most alienated me from my peers, besides "being mystically spiritual" (which I try to keep quiet and just, like, stay on topic, but it's not really a secret). Because the action I chose to take worked, though it was outright cruel to a severely introverted socially phobic anxious wreck who still somehow knew, this was what was best for her...

I didn't get home internet. I didn't get TV. I didn't get a land line.

I had a cell phone and at the time, I started with 5 gigs of data and expanded to 15 in the year or so to come. If I wanted to use the internet I had to go to a library or a fast food restaurant with Wifi with my laptop, or use up my precious data. There were a few times I did slip and pay fiercely for the data I used, but for the most part the fact that data cost money above and beyond my plan kept me to my commitment to leave my apartment for internet. This meant I finally got accustomed to being around people (though I've slipped now, as I have had internet for a few years) and I broke my addiction because I loved being a homebody the most, so instead I read books, did art, and wrote. I was productive enough I started my own business and built the foundation for what I'm doing today. (FYI: fantasy cartographer... yes, I know that's weird and you've probably never met anyone else who makes their living doing it but turns out you can make money off literally any hobby you want these days so that's a small perk of the privacy we've surrendered.)

I spent three years without regular reliable internet access. I would go to the library after work or use the internet at work because I was allowed to do that, and then go home to radio silence, as I tended to reserve that data for my emails and any client interactions / uploads I needed to do. I remember sitting on steps outside trying to upload files for someone because I was out of data. I got into the best shape of my life because I was actually brave enough to join a gym then (and they had Wifi).

So I took it a step further once I finally got home internet, and I began leaving my phone at home for non-essential short trips like dinners out and grocery shopping, and once I got into the habit of not grabbing my phone anymore, I began to see how many people around me were sucked in. They hadn't seen the warning signs as teenagers and had let the addiction build. Most of my peers are face down in their phone at any moment, and they only want to communicate through digital means. Lengthy reading has become a chore for many (not all, of course, I have some wonderfully intelligent friends) and some have attention spans so short, they watch TV episodes with their phone in hand, flicking between private messages, Discord, Twitter, and the show. I love them, and it scares me. I'm happy if I don't have to touch my phone for a day. They'd be devastated. While the computer is a necessary link to my clients, requiring me to spend some time on it every day... a rather lot of time on it... I don't recreationally use the internet nearly as much, and it's easy for me to be separate from my phone and sitting in the real world.

The pervasive digital landscape is frightening. I fear it'll create a divide where there are two different castes of peasants... the connected, and the disconnected. Of course we'll still be peasants all the same, but some will be addicted to the virtual multiverse and never leave. I have always felt that my challenge would mirror my mother's. When I was struggling with internet addiction, she too fell into that web and while in some ways she's recovered, she's never been the same. There are the good things and there are the bad things. So it must be that the same age she faced addiction to the internet, I will face the new generation's escapist toy: virtual reality, when I am old, tired, lonely, and longing to get away. So I've done my best to prepare my mind to resist the temptation. I will not be a slave to a virtual reality, I tell myself. And then I ask... am I not already? The computer demands I wake, it demands I work, it drains away my time and energy all the same, even if I actively make spaces without it...

And so it is we've been invaded peacefully, made less of a threat, because we cling to a virtual reality that's gaining power every day.


I believe all forms of it are absolutely devastating.

The problem now is I cannot find another human being who is not nose down in a phone every chance. There is no one left.

What is gone now, that used to be big, is skating rinks. Does anyone remember this? You were actually getting a form of semi-exercise while being confronted by a crowd of other people. No mercy, no escape. These days, at least in the U. S., you'd go straight to jail for raising a kid the way we were.
Nah, you're not the only one, just, they're at home in their gardens, workshops and craft rooms DOING life rather than watching life. There's people out there who still experience life instead of watching it on TV. We still every year have the world's longest skating trail in Winnipeg, on the Red River Valley. :) ...I've never gone, but in my defence, skates hurt my ankles and it's COLD. I have skates, I've just never used them to go on the trail. And this year it kept melting too much to make it early in the year. :( People still do recreational skate here! Just not me!

[Karen (Geophyz)]

I live far out in the country, due to storms my internet was down all weekend so I spent the weekend outside, watching the rain, talking to my horse, taking pictures, smelling the renewal of the earth . I do that kind of stuff every weekend but this weekend I watched no television, didn't get on the internet. I slept better and my dogs adore me for the bushing and walks in the rain we had! This morning I have been looking over the pictures I took, they are, in my opinion, some of my best work. I spend most of my time with a close up lens taking pictures of tiny things. I am thinking my internet will go out again next weekend!

[shaberon]

Nah, you're not the only one, just, they're at home in their gardens, workshops and craft rooms DOING life rather than watching life. There's people out there who still experience life instead of watching it on TV. We still every year have the world's longest skating trail in Winnipeg, on the Red River Valley. :) ...I've never gone, but in my defence, skates hurt my ankles and it's COLD. I have skates, I've just never used them to go on the trail. And this year it kept melting too much to make it early in the year. :( People still do recreational skate here! Just not me!

Most of that depends on where you are.

It does not mean ice skating here, it means roller skating.

But as an example. It used to get cold enough here that the lake would ice over to the point where you could walk on it, so, we would pick holes in it and play imitation hockey with sticks and rocks or something like that.

First of all it hardly ever freezes any more, and, secondly, you'd probably go to jail if you let your kid out on ice unsupervised. But what I am getting at, is, that, as kids, we "owned" all the streets and the yards. I could do whatever I wanted as soon as I could walk, and so my first friends were some Hindus and a retired couple from what was then Czechoslovakia. Now it is hard to find anyone outside. Everything has been sucked in to assigned compartments and so forth. Part of that is voluntary submission to Wi-fi and the other part is the law.