In last week’s column I promised you a part 2, reviewing the data on media addiction. (Have you RSVPed to our workshop yet?) “Social networking is engineered to be as habit-forming as crack cocaine,” are the words found in a recent article in Computerworld in 2015. Common Sense Media spent some time this year conducting a research study and reviewing the literature on technology addiction, media use, and family media management, among other topics, in their report Technology Addiction: Concern, Controversy and Finding Balance..
What is an addiction? In the report it describes what addiction is using a hypothetical teenager named Sue. “... First Sue interacts with a ‘rewarding stimulus’ -something that stimulates or kicks into action, the brain’s ‘reward pathway.’ When the reward pathway is stimulated, it triggers the release of dopamine...a neurotransmitter, or a messenger chemical. Dopamine tells the brain to pay attention: Something is about to happen. It rewires the brain such that addicts need more of a given stimulus to get a desired effect....Sue’s brain heeds dopamine’s message, shifting into a state of wanting, expecting, and desiring pleasure...Over time, the brain adjusts and becomes less sensitive to dopamine. She will need more of the rewarding stimulus to feel the same effect...Tolerance can lead to increased cravings for the rewarding stimulus…”
The authors quote a 2011 study that through neuroimaging the brains of those identified with an internet addiction they noted that their images resemble those of substance abusers and pathological gamblers. For example, the gray matter- associated with executive functioning, planning, decision making and impulse control is seen to be less dense in the brains of youths addicted to the internet. (It is difficult to say which came first- does the addiction cause changes in the brain or those with different brain structures are more prone to the addiction?).
In fact, withdrawal symptoms experienced by youth who are deprived of their technological devices is compared to those felt by drug addicts or smokers going “cold turkey,” as reported by a study called “The World Unplugged” by Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. Students ages 17-23 were asked to give up their media for one day, but were allowed to use landlines and read books. Participants felt physical and mental distress, including panic, confusion and extreme isolation when they were forced to “unplug” for only one day. They reported emotions such as “fretful, confuse, anxious, irritable, insecure, nervous, restless, crazy, addicted, panicked, jealous, angry, lonely, dependent, depressed, jittery and paranoid.”
Teens tend to be more prone to addiction. Why? The region in their brain responsible for decision making is more affected and influenced by rewards than is the adult brain. Additionally, the frontal lobe, which control decision making and impulsivity, is still developing. They are less able to set limits and stop themselves when it comes to media.
I wish to focus upon two specific areas of the body of the Common Sense Media report : the effects of multitasking and the impact on social well-being. One common area faced by parents of teens is media multitasking. A 2010 study of children 8-18 found that they were engaged in media multitasking for 29% of their overall media use time, “fitting over 10 hours of media use into 7.5 hours of their day.” Another study of students in middle school through university found that they studied for fewer than six minutes before switching to “another technological distraction such as texting or social media.” In their own research study, Common Sense Media found that 51% of teens watched TV, 50% used social media and 60% texted while doing homework. (Sounds familiar?) Most teens did not feel that the multitasking affected the quality of their work.
Does multitasking affect productivity? Does it cause cognitive fatigue- a type mental exhaustion caused by the strain of switching between tasks and multiple trains of thought? Does it reduce work speed? Multitasking also makes it more difficult to create memories that can be accurately retrieved later. So, “When a student’s attention is distracted- for example by texting with friends while taking notes in class- the student may not properly mentally encode what the teacher has said. As a result, the student would have greater difficulty retrieving the memory on a test.” It does not seem that since these children were born into a generation of multi-taskers they are more adept at it. There is also evidence that multitasking is a risk factor for depression and anxiety.
Another area of burgeoning research is on the impact of technology on social well-being. Researchers have indicated that social media has impacted on the fact that narcissism seems to be on the increase and empathy on the decline. Some reasons for this might be the fact that when we interact with others through a screen we miss out on the visual, auditory and tactile cues that we would receive in person. People also tend to be more aggressive or insensitive on-line than face to face. Posting on social media involves self-promotion and talking about oneself, which logically may lead to higher levels of narcissism. 77% of teens feel they get distracted by devices and don’t pay attention when they get together. Although there needs to be more research on the impact of technology on the social and emotional skills of children, there is some preliminary research indicating that girls 8-12 years old express that media multitasking was associated with “feeling judged, feeling stressed and having hurt feelings.”
The Common Sense Media report spends the rest of its report sharing the recommendations for parents in finding balance and embracing quality media usage. I am not going to share those with you as you will be able to find those answers at our Monday night parent workshop
Setting Boundaries and Balancing Technology
Use for your Child
featuring
Dr. Eli Shapiro
of the Digital Citizenship Project
Monday, December 12, 2016 at 7:30 P.M.
I look forward to seeing you all there!
Advisory Update:
Sixth Grade: Students began a unit on Bar/Bat Mitzvah etiquette and behavior.
Seventh Grade: How do we often judge others by they way they look or seem to us, is a question students considered.
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