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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."
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.
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.
"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."
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.