In a subtly patronizing tone that has come to be expected in arguments of this nature, researchers from the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda recently claimed in their World Unplugged Study that youth are "addicted to media:"During the World Unplugged study…students became most cognizant of was their absolute inability to direct their lives without media. The depths of the "addiction" that students reported prompted some to confess that they had learned that they needed to curb their media habits. Most students doubted they would have much success, but they acknowledged that their reliance on media was to some degree self-imposed AND actually inhibited their ability to manage their lives as fully as they hoped – to make proactive rather than reactive choices about work and play.The study involved putting college kids through the fiery hellscape of 24 hours without their cell phones and computers – no social media, no news, no mp3s, no calls, and no texting. In a series of surveys, the students responded with quotables like: "Media is not just a convenience, it is literally a part of my life," and "I cannot imagine how life can be without using the media." The surveys were all pooled to assess attitudes towards media, and, alas, we have our puffed-up sociological conclusion – kids are addicted to media.First, let's start with the word "addiction." Addiction is a complex idea, and psychologists and neuroscientists still argue about what it actually is. With research showing that we can even become "addicted" to cheesecake, it is important that we talk about what one is specifically addicted to and what the effects of a given addiction are. The World Unplugged authors use the word over and over again but never provide details. Sure, many 18-year-olds will say they're "addicted" to their phones, but does that mean they're addicted to typing? Addicted to staring at LCD screens? Addicted to that pleasing little noise their phone makes when they get a new message?They're likely just using the word colloquially. I say I'm addicted to biting my nails, but I'm not going to rehab for it. Loose allusions to what are in reality just habits or repeated behaviors, rather than addictions, should not be paraded as grave psychological afflictions, as this study seems to do (and succeeds at doing, if the global press hullabaloo around it means anything).And what's the problem with media? If, for the sake of argument, we reluctantly accept that kids are "addicted" to media, where's the social fallout? Where are the family interventions, run-ins with the law, and rants about 7-gram rocks on national television? Humans are a social species, and the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the "media" referred to in the study are social networking tools, the authors might as well claim that young people are "addicted" to being social.Well, of course they are: they're humans.If humans were not behaviorally inclined to be social, especially during the intense maturation period of adolescence, our species would have been out-competed by the strong, agile, feces-throwing chimpanzees a long time ago. Humanity is sociality, and it has been that way for millions of years. While the form that that sociality comes in has changed — from body language to spoken language to text messaging and so on — we aren’t necessarily making communication more dangerous or ineffective, nor are we making it better. We’re evolving.Are daily newspaper readers addicts? What's wrong with reading about the Japanese earthquake via a news article posted by your friend on Facebook? Is there a significant difference between gossiping via Facebook messages and gossiping via handwritten letters, as youth in the 19th century were surely doing? Sure, having constant minute-to-minute connections to your social network has increased the scale of human communication, but is that necessarily a negative?I suspect the authors from the ICMPA are, deep down, just traditional "kids-should-go-outside-more" types, like Calvin's dad. If Exhibit A is the World Unplugged study, Exhibit B is the graphic used on their homepage, depicting a computer keyboard grown over with some picturesque leaves and moss. I say quit the pseudo-psychology, and just tow the old "go play outside, it builds character" line — It's decent advice (kids are certainly too fat) – and should give you some quiet time to promote your study on Facebook.
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