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Half Of Teens Think They're Addicted To Their Smartphones (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new poll confirms just how much teens depend on their phones. Fifty percent of teens feel they are addicted to their mobile devices, according to the poll, which was conducted for Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on helping children, parents, teachers and policymakers negotiate media and technology. A larger number of parents, 59%, said their teens were addicted. The poll involved 1,240 interviews with parents and their children, ages 12 to 18. "Technological addiction can happen to anyone," said digital detox expert Holland Haiis. "If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone, as opposed to going out to the movies, meeting friends for burgers or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem."
or the right half?
It's obvious that most teens are addicted. Why don't parents just take away the phones? It's not like the teens can do much about it. They're not entitled to smartphones. Why not take them away?
I suspect I'll get downmodded to -1 so people can avoid the question and pretend like it's not here. Can anyone actually answer the question rather than evading it through moderation? I don't think Slashdot is capable of giving a good answer.
What does gaming indoors have to do with smartphones? Oh I get it, a "digital detox expert" is trying to make a buck doing nothing with their life.
And the other half are in denial.
Dark Reflection
I thought being online all the time was weird. I was glued to my monitor. Now everyone is doing it with cell phones and saying they are addicted. I kinda miss when you had to be a nerd to get online. It wasn't a social issue back then.
How am I supposed to keep my kids from getting addicted to smart phones when my wife snaps at me every time I suggest that maybe she could put her phone down during dinner.
Modern app appers know that only apps can app apps, so these teens are actually app appers who only app apps!
Apps!
Wheres Nancy Reagan when we need her?
"People Don't Understand What The Word "Addicted" Means"
...or perhaps 'addiction' means 'anything that keeps us busy doing something while we should busy on something else'.
I've had a couple friends die because of real addictions. Being addicted to your smart phone is not even on the same spectrum.
If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone (Well online with hundreds of people who they are interacting with)
as opposed to going out to the movies (Nothing more social going into a big dark room to sit down to watch a movie, and told be quite)
meeting friends for burgers (Nothing wholesome like connecting friendship with the injection of fatty foods. )
or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie. (camaraderie?!? For teens they are so self absorbed that they never even listen to their friends they all just talk about themselves in turn. Their enemies are the ones who actually listen to them and use what they say against them. )
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"If your teens would prefer writing poetry, alone, as opposed to going out to the theater, meeting friends for rolls or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem." - ancient Rome ~ 0AD
If you're addicted, by all means seek treatment, but honestly, most of this is simply another round of how decadent kids are, and this has been going for many thousands of years, probably since the first ever sucessful hunt. Furthermore, most of this is pales to a real addiction - if your symptoms are that you don't like being around others, how about we talk about being addicted to books? Being addicted to movies? Being addicted to schoolwork? Hell, being addicted to being an introvert? The symptoms are all the same. Undoubtly there are people who truly suffer from this, I'm not saying there aren't, but I suspect much of this to be overblown out of proportions.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Gaming indoors is the modern teen camaraderie:
- Invites communication & collaborative strategy
- Experiencing win/lose attitudes
Movies are the epitome of anti-social:
- sit silently in the dark, opposing all who talk, to be indoctrinated.
Driving age is over 18 in many areas, or over 19 with passengers, so how are the "teens" supposed to get to this burger place?
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
My biggest addiction is porcelain toilets in heated buildings. It takes a lot rehab to get over that one.
Half of teens think being "triggered" is feeling mildly uncomfortable after reading something they don't like and "depression" is not enjoying getting up early in the morning to go to school. Some definitions and a little bit of perspective might be in order.
Having a mental illness is the new black, don'tcha know. Who needs health professionals when you can self diagnose based on what you read on Tumblr?
I'm addicted to my left arm. I rarely go a day without it, and at this point I'm not sure I can stop using it without intervention.
Seriously, though, stop blaming the tool. If these teens are using their devices in moderation for communication, education, and yes, entertainment, that's called progress.
If they are gaming alone too much, just say that.
FWIW, my parents thought I was gaming too much on my Commodore 64.
"If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone, as opposed to going out to the movies, meeting friends for burgers or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem."
I'm sorry but this is the same bullsh** parents used to spout when I was a child-
Don't waste your time playing video games!
Go outside and get some sun!
Why don't you go play football or something?
you'll never if you just sit there on that computer all day.
Our parents meant well. But they didn't understand that games are the primary training tool for computer interfaces... They didn't see what was possible and thought we were all wasting our time. But now they know differently. Now they are all online and happy to receive pictures of their grandchildren and get to Skype/Facetime/etc with their families and friends. Now everyone wants their child into STEM and interest in football is waning because we've finally realized that repeatedly hitting our children in the head has consequences. At last, being a nerd is no longer a stigma.
If more than half of teens have this supposed 'problem' who is to say it's not the new normal? We ran up to them and handed them a baton and now we don't like which way they are running with it? If my generation had listened to our parent's the PC would have been a flash-in-the-pan fad and the world would look very different right now.
The real question for me is - What amazing things will this next generation do with the technology at their fingertips?
Half Of Teens Think They're Addicted To Their Smartphones - the other half are in denial.
Ken
"If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone, as opposed to going out to the movies, meeting friends for burgers or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem."
Perhaps I hate paying outrageous amounts of money to sit in a dirty theater with stale, overpriced popcorn while some teenagers in upper back row provide braindead commentary and inside jokes with their other friends while theater management simply does nothing. Why are online relationships so much less "social"? I'm not making out with my friends, I'm not a hugger, so tell me why something like Facetime or Hangouts are less acceptable.
they are addicted. If we only had a Reagan to declare The War On Phones.
If you would prefer doing things alone by yourself instead of with other people, the vast majority of whom are shitty and not worthy of your time, there's something wrong with you! /sarcasm
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
After all, they probably just read on their cellphones that they were addicted, so they parroted it back ;D
But to be honest, real addicts DENY that they are addicts. One of the core principles of the 12 steps is to admit your addiction. Same thing for most of the other non-12 step programs.
Real addicts don't admit they have a problem.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
As a parent of kids who are just becoming teens, I can say it is real tough to keep them off of those things. We haven't get bought smartphones for our kids for partly this reason. Judging by how hard it is to keep them away from their tablets at home, and maintain a healthy balance to their lives, teachers will have no chance at it. Once they get phones I can see there will be no going back; they will spend every waking moment on them and we won't be there so there will be nothing we can do. I'm kind of shocked how early parents give these things to their kids to take to school.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Unless you have to do something on it while driving.
Why would an American association have a .eu address?
"Half of teens *THINK*"!
...half of teens don't know what "addicted" means.
"Digital detox expert" cracked me up. I'm a Psychologist by education, and as far as I know, "digital detox expert" is not legit. I strongly doubt it is addiction in the same way we mean when we say, "Bob is addicted to opiates". Do teens go through physical withdrawal symptoms when smart phone use ceases? I mean, aside from being angsty and pissy (normal teen behavior).
It's not meaningless, it's just used incorrectly. Do teens go through physical withdrawal symptoms when they are forced to stay off of their mobile devices? I very much doubt it. Do they engage in risky or illegal activity to ensure they can continue using mobile phones? Does their mobile phone use severely impair their ability to function socially, academically, or otherwise? Possibly, but nowhere near the extent to which something like heroin or alcohol. Thus, one can't be addicted to a phone.
Well, of course...it's the most influential gadget OF ALL TIME.
I'm not sure that there is much of a difference between going out to eat burgers with friends, or playing a game online with friends. They're both social events...
so how the hell are they getting addicted?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
When I was a teen, I thought I was addicted to Green Day.
They'll be fine.
I'm equally addicted to indoor plumbing and electricity.
Teens build camaraderie through online interaction and not going out to movies these days.
To an out of touch parent it may appear your child is gaming alone. In reality they likely have a chat and/or voice connection to their friends and are playing a game together through the net. This is no less social or camaraderie than sitting in a room playing a board or video game together but parents would see one as social interaction and the other as isolation.
"Addicted to technology" and "If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone, as opposed to going out to the movies, meeting friends for burgers or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem." You might be describing most of slashdot and the linux crowd?
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Would you suck dick for it?
That's the Austrian branch. *nods*
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What do you think they're doing on those things? Recompiling their Linux kernel? They're talking to their fucking friends.
Am I to understand that some asshole named Holland Haiis is making a CAREER out of bitching about technology? What is even the point of whining about Kids These Days(tm) when civilization is clearly already fucked?
In other news, half of teens don't understand what the word "addicted" means.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
"addiction" meant that a person had consumed something, his body had chemically adapted to it, and now if the substance was taken away he would suffer physical withdrawl as his body was unable to, or struggling to, resume normal operation without the addictive substance. It used to primarily apply to drugs.
Around about the time the "twinkie defense" arose in a court room, the various would-be mind-reading experts in certain professional fields and all sorts of oddball activists started applying the term "addiction" to anything somebody likes and does not want to stop.
Phone addiction? Shut the damn thing off.
Cannot leave it off for a whole day? Smash it with a sledge hammer. "Addiction" solved.
A kid who whines and complains and fidgets when deprived of a phone is no different from a typical three year old lying on the floor and screaming in a store when mommy or daddy won't buy some shiny bauble. It's called a tantrum and if not stopped it will produce an anti-social spoiled brat adult who will need a "safe space" someday in college and will probably become a social justice warrior.
The electronic world is no world at all. It's a dead-end of mind-numbing entertainment to support mountains of advertising and spying. Young people need to be encouraged to go out into the real world to meet other people in person, encounter trees and animals, rivers, lakes, and oceans, the sky and mountains, etc. You can fry your brains on a regular diet of e-this and e-that when you are old and physically debilitated and no longer able to venture out into nature. Interacting with everybody via smartphone is fine when you are old and wheelchair-bound or stuck in a hospital bed. When you are young you should be meeting people face-to-face and TRULY interacting, going to see and do things together with friends and family. Failing to teach kids this is a form of child abuse.