I find it sad that we even need articles like this, but it was probably inevitable:
You Don't Need a Digital Detox: You Just Need to Learn to Set Limits and BoundariesÂ*|Â*Dr. Larry Rosen
It's an interesting read about smartphone obsession. I've been complaining for the past two years about how addicted to their phones people are. How you have to often wait until someone is finished texting/whatever to have a conversation with them or to have their full (actually more like distracted) attention. I've struggled with the issue myself at times, and other times I've managed to get it under control.
It's disturbing to me, though, that such a thing can even happen in the first place. No matter where you go now, people are staring at their screens. And as the author of the article says, I think it's not about avoiding it - let's face it, it's a part of our lives now, you can't get away from it unless you want to reject it altogether, which I think has more cons than pros - but about training your brain to be okay with not being connected 24/7 mentally.
I know I tend to get more addicted to my phone when I'm depressed, too, because not only is it an escape, it also doesn't require any effort, unlike many other activities. And it's emotionally (and superficially) rewarding to participate in social media and text messaging and to get notifications or play online games/surf Youtube/get lost in articles, etc.
Smartphone/digital technology is both disturbing and fascinating, and I'll be interested to see the various positive and negative effects it will have on my generation over the course of our lives, and all the research that will be done - because lord knows we need a LOT of research on such a powerful tool.
