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Are Americans Addicted to Technology?
jomammy writes "According to a recent Wired article, the majority of Americans are becoming increasingly dependant on their gadgets. High speed internet seems to be the one most determined to be a 'necessity'. A third of the country is said to pay more than $200.00 a month for their addiction, where 4 out of 10 pay between $100.00 and $150.00 a month. Other items in this list of 'gadgets' include, mp3 players, dvd players, laptops, handhelds, etc." How addicted are we? How addicted are you?
Help! I keep refreshing Slashdot! Oh no!
"According to a recent Wired article, the majority of Americans are becoming increasingly dependant on their gadgets."
And Japan is what? In the dark ages?
I can quit any time I want.
Oh, please. This is just more useless drivel written to sell magazines. Just because something makes your life easier or more fun, doesn't mean everyone is "addicted" because they enjoy using it. Are Americans adicted to tooth brushes, too? 99% of us admit to using them at least daily! OH NO!
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Well, I'm on vacation and I'm reading Slashdot.
That about says it all.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
They misspelled 'porn'.
If this is the case, am I addicted to food?
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
And this is NOTHING to be concerned about. Technology is defined as: " 1. The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives. 2. The scientific method and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective. " Ok - FIRE is a technology. So are things as simple as forks, or spoons, or plates. The human race is addicted to technology, for better or for worse. America's only addicted to the most recent advancements more than the rest of the world. There is nothing wrong with this "Addiction" - They say it like it's a bad thing. Without technology, we'd still be running around like apes.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
...but is it, really? Yes, we're dependent on our technology, but calling it an "addiction" is merely one perspective. Instead, couldn't we just as easily call it symbiosis? It could be that we're taking the first steps towards becoming cyborgs, or something.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
If we are talking cliniacal definitions of addiction, i.e. falsely convinced that we cannot live without something and willing to orob/maim/kill/destroy our lives, to obtain it then it depends. I think ther we need to specify the technology in question.
If we are talking a general "growing too soft/dependent upon specific tech" then I would say yes, especially with the internet. I know far too many people who feel the need to have a machine up all the time.
But I think we should really go more basic than that; Electricity.
The standards that we are used to in America, and the rest of the industrialized world (stable, widely available power that rarely if ever goes down) is a) uncommon in the rest of the world, and b) an anomoly in human existence. Few of my peers know how to make a fire or even what to do when the power goes down (hint, the electric can opener will no longer work).
The level of panic surrounding the Y2k bug should have made this clear to anyone. Far too many people (some of them policymakers) panicked at the thought of "global power outages" and, as Katrina showed, far too many were left stranded, unprepared, and unaided when a real disaster struck.
In my opinion "addiction" to mp3 players is just icing on the cake.
in general)I know too many others who *have no clue*
Compared to the insanely cool, science-fiction advanced consumer tech, everything from cell phones to high-speed internet available in Europe, Japan and South Korea, the US is dowdy and backwards. Cingular ain't got squat on DoMoCo, and even a Mielle washer/dryer set is lightyears ahead of the stone-age clunkers Kenmore and Maytag inflict on the American household.
When it comes to technology obsession, the High Street in London and the Akihabara in Tokyo are where it's at.
SoupIsGood Food
i have friend whose dad is a tech junkie. All kinds of gadgets high-speed, workstation laptops etc. One day his son (my friend) got fed with it all, and moed to middle of Mojave desert, where he get no electricity, and certainly no television signal. And he has to drive 5 miles just to get to the closest payfone.
But his daughter, who has doesn't even know what a television is, is very wise for her age (i.e. 7 yrs). Here, I make a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. She may not have all the knowledge, but she is certainly wiser then other kids of her age or even some grown ups.
Would you do something like this? Would you make such a daring move for you children's sake?
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
On one hand, yes I'm addicted -- I can barely go a day without at least briefly connecting to the internet, and I don't even want to know how many hours I've logged playing my little gnome mage on World of Warcraft.
However, for many of us, the dependence is more than just a regular old physical/psychological addiction. My marks at school, for example, depend on my being able to get on a computer and access the internet on a regular basis. Many assignments are made available solely through a class website or WebCT, and in two of my classes this past term, every single assignment had to be handed in via the Unix handin command (or the web-based Windows equivalent). Admittedly, I am a computer science student, but there aren't all that many courses in which computers or other forms of technology are completely absent -- even arts students are expected to write essays, and few professors will accept handwritten submissions these days.
I'm addicted to fire, electricity, housing, cooked food and sharpened metal tools.
Or maybe sometimes technology improves your life so you use it.
Addiction is when something makes your life worse, but you keep using it because you are irrationally drawn to it.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
By that reasoning, we must also be addicted to taxes, because I know I pay well more than $200/month in income, sales and other taxes. Who do I talk to about giving up taxes?
In other news, Microsoft Windows users are now covered under the Americans with Disabilties Act...
In Canada, 3Mb/s is $48 per month... cheaper if you go with a smaller provider !
$48 per month? That's like $3.34 US! How do you guys get internet so cheap up north?
That $200.00 a month is likely for the total tech consumption (i.e. Internet access plus all you spend on tech toys, gadgets and related services) for the month - not for internet access. Internet access is between $20.00 and $50.00 a month - just like up north.
Wow Internet is expensive down south.
Wow you didn't read the article.
That bill includes telephone, internet, and TV feeds. In much of the US DSL is down to $14.95, and high speed cable or FIOS is running about $50 for a 15 mb/sec feed in some areas. My cable service just announced a 30 mbit/sec premium service, and has hinted at 50 mbit/sec.
Should be +5 Informative. We all know that the Internet is for porn...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I have to answer my cell phonce, txt my friend and check my email first.
Oh well, what the hell
How about that whole 'it costs $200 per month to pay for this addiction' crap.
Just buying 1 laptop could account for an entire year. Is buying 1 laptop an addiction nowadays?
Guys it is a slow newsday. This reporter needed his christmas bonus so he put in a small non-article with a nice headline that while at the same time being properly alarmist is also nice and safe not to ruin the giftmas feeling.
It also got iPod in it wich is always good.
Bleh.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I so love that phrase because it suggests weakness of some sort. As if governments didn't exist to protect and help the people and anyone who thinks otherwize deserves a rude awakening.
In the case of Katrina the very government agencies that we have formed, funded and trained to care for the sick, the elderly, the disposessed of our society, were placed in the hands of self-centered morons whose only interest was in settling the "shirtsleeves up or down" issue. People who could not leave because they were too sick and didn't own cars were being told to "take some cash and drive away". Even now no reliable plan exists to get them home and Karl Rove is directing the reconstruction efforts.
We form governments to protect us as a whole, because individual humans, however many guns they have, are weak and likely to die. To suggest that people who looked to the government that they supported to help them were "weak" or overly dependent" is in my opinion incorrect. Rather wwe should say that the government failed the people. The government failed in its most essential function. What's worse it did so because people let it fail, perhaps even made it fail not because it should not have succeeded.
How about electricity, indoor plumbing, toilets in general. Don't forgent anything to do with farming. Plows, harvesters, trucks to ship food. I would say that if all technology disappeard tomorrow, 99% of the population would die. So, yes we are addicted, as most of the world is.
Where I am (Northeastern US) 1.5-5 Mbps is typical, though I have seen some higher priced residential services going to around 10 Mbps. Typically, there are no download limits or excess usage fees, but they reserve the right to reduce your bandwidth for "abuse." I haven't run into that problem yet---I don't use peer-to-peer applications, but I do download software for my Linux machines frequently. I think the "abuse" line is a tool for them to prevent people from saturating their connections 24/7 using peer-to-peer traffic or on hosts that have become zombies.
Different ISPs have different policies regarding inbound traffic---one ISP near me allows all the ports I've tried inbound, whereas another blocks ports like 80 and 23.
Case: email Case: IM Case: online gaming Case: forums Case: surfing Case: RSS Case: interactive purchasing Case: downloading entertainment Case: blogging Case: social infrastructure Go on. Run the sieve. Tell me what's not addictive. We're social and interactive creatures. Ask the question again. What knid of dumbass question is this? Yo: Cowboy Neal--> learn to ask a reasonable question.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
My vetenarian was complaining today that she used to have a system which used Ricochet, a dumb terminal in her truck, and a Xenix server in her office to access horse medical records remotely. This provided a 38Kb/s connection. Since Ricochet went out of business, that's no longer possible. Data over cellular is less available, slower, harder to set up, and more expensive. Yes, you can set up a VPN, and "web enable" the server, but it's more trouble than it is worth.
in fact, Americans are addicted to money.
(It's no flamebait, just a fact - it's Ze capitalist country after all.)
Anyone read "The Time Machine" and remember the Eloi, the surface dwelling
...
flower children that used the technology that was left them, but after
generations forgot how it worked. Do you happen to recall that they were
food for the cannibalistic Morlocks? This is what happens with dependency.
Think back though history and does anyone know when there was ever a group
of people dependent on something, that another group did not find out about
and take advantage of? Opium/China, Oil/USA, Grain/Russis, Cocaine/USA,
Cheap Labor/USA, CheapGadgets/USA
Lucky we have lots and lots of money in the back isn't it? Huh??????
That's a mighty long swim.
...but the article makes it sounds as if it is a bad thing. Without tech, we would be reduced to killing each other for wealth, power, resources, women, etc. Now that we do have it... oh.. heh... la dee daa...
Forest tribes are addicted to technology just like americans. They cannot live without bows, arrows, and fire tools.
There you are, staring at me again.
I am typing this comment from my toilet on my laptop... oh and I'm American
You really forgot Japan this time! American's suck at technology in most cases. Half og you don't know how to program your VCR. The other half never knew anything about SMS either. The people who are really 'into' technology knowledge are the Finnish/Swedes/Dutch. The people who have successfully ingrained technology into their lifestyle are the Japanese.
Get your head outta your ass, there is more to the world than the US and by no means are you the ideal standard.
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
i find it strange that i have absolutely nothing to do when my internet goes down....
"Times have not become more violent, they have just become more televised." - Marilyn Manson
The whole world has been addicted to technology as soon as agriculture was invented and the human population exceeded the number that could be sustained by hunting and gathering alone.
...but is it art?
If one defines addiction as not being able to live without something then the military is definitely addicted to technology. A friend of mine during his military service took part in a joint training involving various of armies from NATO states. He always said the easiest thing to do was to secretly snitch the American's GPS devices. They were totally lost without them. Just his 2 cents.
from the to-stupid-for-words dept.
is often considered as a typical sign of it.
According to wikipedia , addiction is a compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its consequences.
I know a bunch of people who are trully addicted to e-mail. They feel the need to check it during the whole day. They 'll use it as their sole way to communicate with other people. They 'll even send mails to the guy/girl sitting next to him/her rather than talk to them.
And as a result they loose their ability to normaly communicate and socially interract with people. They'll feel lost and cut off from the world when they don't have access to their email. I would say this is typical compulsary behavior regardless of its consequences. However while many people start
falling in that catagory, few are going to admit it.
red.
from the article:
Some people freely admit to being high-tech junkies.
"The internet connection is my lifeline," said Jennifer Strother, a mother of two young children who lives in Smithfield, Virginia. "It's the connection to friends, e-mail -- especially for stay-at-home moms. I'm hungry for adult conversation and any news that isn't Dora the Explorer or Blue's Clues."
How is this an admission to being a hi tech junkie? The very reason for her use of the internet is not tech, but communication. As with most of the article the authors attempt to classify us as "junkies" fails. He or she fails to see that for the most part, tech purchases are so that we may consume media such as TV or Music or communicate with others. This is not an hi tech additiction as the author would have us believe, because the technology itself is not the motivator for purchase.
Only dweebs that think only in terms of "consumer electronics" and some model of sin if we aren't using manual typewriters would miss the fact that internet, cell phones, home computers, etc. help us do what we do a lot more productively and with a lot more information and convenience. The face of media is changing as increasingly all of us browse and share information and opinions. The entire face of business has changed. Large sections of how we socialize and with whom have changed to include a much larger circle. Are we "addicted" to more abundant and productive living? You bet! And as long as there is an ounce of gumption and worth in us we will continue to be. It is a good thing.