Screen-addicted children may have newest mental illness. Children reliant on electronic devices could develop "internet-use disorder". Photo: Dallas Kilponen Children addicted to using electronic devices 24/7 will be diagnosed with a serious mental illness if a new addiction, included as ''internet-use disorder'' in a worldwide psychiatric manual, is confirmed by further research. The formal inclusion of the new addiction has been welcomed by Australian psychology professionals in response to a wave of ''always-on'' technology engulfing kids. "With kids, gaming is an obvious issue. The Sun-Herald has spoken to parents of children as young as seven who are aggressive, irritable and hostile when deprived of their iPads or laptops.
Advertisement Other fallout can include devastating impacts for children and families as social interaction and even food are neglected in favour of the virtual worlds the children inhabit. ''With kids, gaming is an obvious issue. Her first attempt to address the problem was to limit Jack to a one-hour time limit. Multi-screen mania: how our devices work together. The reality of our multi-screen world is that consumers are increasingly turning to different devices throughout the day to accomplish tasks. A user might rely on a smartphone to dash off a quick text message or to scan a product in store, then use a tablet to plan trips at home and then turn to a PC to do more heavy research.
But we’re not just tackling discrete jobs with each device. We’re spreading out tasks between devices, starting something on one screen and then completing the task on another machine. That’s the conclusion of new research from Google, which set out to understand how we’re using our network of devices. And that has implications for publishers and marketers, who are trying to understand how to stay in front of consumers as they use more devices. Google teamed with Sterling Brands and Ipsos and studied the media habits of 1,611 people across the country in the second quarter of this year. Working between devices Pivoting between screens. Psychology Of Social Networking [INFOGRAPHIC] Many colleges are concerned about providing enough bandwidth to students.
Brits with mobiles now text more than talk. Without Social Media, 18% Of Teens Would 'Stop Communicating' 18% of teens would stop communicating altogether if their favorite social networks shut down. That’s according to a recent survey of American high school and college students by email marketing company AWeber. According to the survey, 90% of teens are on Facebook, and an astounding 93% of teenagers use mobile phones -– the same amount that use email. 74% of teens are YouTube users, and 47% use Skype to keep up with others. Facebook and Email own almost equal parts of teens' hearts.
With teenagers going for both when they wake up in the morning, while they're in class, and even while they're on vacation. 6% of teens thought they might replace their cell phones with a landline or writing more letters if mobile phones suddenly became unavailable. A whopping 18%, however, thought they would stop communicating altogether if their favorite channel of communication disappeared. Check out the infographic below for a closer look. [via AWeber] Nearly 9 out of 10 Facebook users keep tabs on their exes. According to a study conducted by a Western University student completing her Masters’ thesis, approximately 88 percent of Facebook users that went through a relationship breakup in the last twelve months use the social network to keep an eye on their ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.
Veronika Lukacs, the student conducting the study, wanted to see how distress caused by the end of a relationship is related to Facebook use. Subjects filled out a survey answering questions about Facebook usage post break-up and Lukacs also conducted interviews with the respondents. When asked about the results of the study which was called “It’s Complicated: Romantic Breakups and Their Aftermath on Facebook”, Lukacs stated “What I found was that whether you were on Facebook all the time or not, your distress level changed based on how much surveillance you were doing (post break-up).” She continued ”The more surveillance there was, the more distress there was, but it’s difficult to say why. Screen Time: How Much is Too Much for Your Kids? We're All Internet Addicts, And We're All Screwed, Says Newsweek.
Is modern technology creating a culture of distraction? Are all the modern devices and digital conveniences we have at our disposal — from the web and social media to smartphones and tablets — making us more distracted and less able to concentrate? And is this harming our ability to think and be creative, and therefore by extension harming society as a whole?
It’s a question that rears its head from time to time. One of the latest expressions of this fear comes from Joe Kraus, a serial entrepreneur who is now a partner with Google Ventures and gave a presentation recently about his concerns, offering an alternative concept he calls “Slow Tech.” But is this really something that we need to be afraid of? We are creating and encouraging a culture of distraction where we are increasingly disconnected from the people and events around us, and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking. Is multi-tasking just a myth? The Google Ventures partner and former co-founder of Excite.com also quotes sociologist Dr. Do You Share Too Much on Social Media? [INFOGRAPHIC] Sharing is the basis of social media, and it can be a beautiful thing. Keeping up with family and friends as kids grow, relationships become marriages and adventures are had — social media can be tons of fun and helps us feel connected to one another.
But when does all that sharing become too much? And when can what you share online actually become dangerous? A recent study commissioned by Intel found that 90% of American adults think people share too much, and nearly half of adults find the deluge of information to be overwhelming. The abundance of information isn't just annoying — it can also make overeager posters targets for scams and other crimes. 4.8 million broadcast when they're leaving the house, 4.7 million about health conditions, 4.6 million about their love lives and 2.6 million about alcohol use, according to that study. How can sharing this kind of information become problematic?
Do you think people share too much online or are concerns overblown? 'Hamlet's BlackBerry': To Surf Or Not To Surf? Do You Suffer From These 4 Tech Afflictions? Quick: How many devices do you have on-hand at this very moment? How often have you checked your social media accounts in the last hour? When was the last time you played a video game? The answers to these questions may seem inconsequential, but tech addiction is real, and it can have dreadful consequences.
According to a January study published in PLoS ONE, a journal of the Public Library of Science, people addicted to the Internet may experience chemical changes in their brains similar to those of alcoholics and other drug addicts. And that's just the Internet — think about all the other aspects of technology we succumb to every day. Check out the following ailments that you should avoid at all costs. 1.
Do you ever reach for your cellphone because you feel it vibrating, only to discover that it hadn't buzzed at all? According to Larry Rosen's book, iDisorder, 70% of those who say they heavily use mobile devices experience phantom vibrations. 2. 3. 4. How much is too much tech?
'My Last Wish' Is a Social Network Based on Death. A new social network has an interesting premise: connecting people around the world based on what they want to do before they die. Called My Last Wish, the app encourages users to post wishes on a 'Wish Wall' and then befriend others who might share their dreams. “I believed in the possibility that there can be two persons in this world with same hopes, dreams and wishes,” Kirtan Thaker, co-founder of the White Lotus Corporation, the group behind the app, told Mashable. “I was confident that if we create a app where this possibility can be turned into reality, people will love this concept and they will get a chance to make friends who are unknown but having just one thing in common which is the last wish.”
When sharing a wish, users can also choose to attach their email address or phone number so others that share their dream can connect with them. Tapping on a person's contact information within the app will add their information to the contacts list in your phone. Half Of Americans Think Facebook Is A Passing Fad. Americans Now Spend More Time On Facebook Mobile Than Its Website. All those minutes reading your news feed in bed, messaging friends over lunch, and browsing photos on the bus really add up. Time spent on Facebook’s mobile site and apps per month (441 minutes) has finally surpassed usage of its classic website (391 minutes) — for Americans who use both Facebook interfaces according to the latest report from comScore.
And that’s actually a big problem for the social network. Facebook usually shows four to seven ads per page on its website, but only a few ads per day in its mobile news feed. That means it makes a lot less money when you visit from your little devices. Can Facebook get away with showing more ads on mobile without turning us off? Way back when Facebook launched in 2004 it was just a website, and it hardly showed ads at all.
At first these smaller interfaces were just a way to glimpse Facebook while away from home. Facebook realized it had to start making money on mobile, but people hate traditional mobile ads. Study helps explain why we over-share on Facebook, Twitter. Researchers at Harvard have gotten to the bottom of why so many of us are compelled to share our every thought, movement, like and want through mediums like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Pinterest. In a series of experiments, the researchers found that the act of disclosing information about oneself activates the same sensation of pleasure in the brain that we get from eating food, getting money or having sex.
It's all a matter of degrees of course, (talking about yourself isn't quite as pleasurable as sex for most of us), but the science makes it clear that our brain considers self-disclosure to be a rewarding experience. This may help explain recent surveys of Internet use that show that roughly 80% of posts to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook consist simply of announcements about one's own immediate experience. Lead researcher Diana Tamir and her co-author Jason P. Lots Of Facebook Users Are Idiots, Says Consumer Reports.
Is Too Much Tech Bad for the Modern Teenager? [INFOGRAPHIC] Is tech saturation good or bad for the modern teenager? Arguments can be made either way, but there's no debating that today's teens are more wired than ever. And digital permeates the lives of young people in general, too. People aged 18-34 have an average of 319 online connections, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. That's compared to an average of 198 connections for the 35-46 group, and the numbers continue to decrease from there. Pew also recently reported that 63% of teenagers text message with friends on a daily basis, compared to 39% who speak on the phone daily and just 35% who interact face-to-face outside of school. But the digital revolution comes with drawbacks. The Internet education portal OnlineSchools.com combined the Kaiser and Pew findings with research from Common Sense Media and other organizations to put together an infographic showing how technology is affecting young people.
Do you think total tech immersion does more to help or hurt teenagers? Five ways Facebook can be bad for your mental health. Danah Boyd Warns of Fear in a Networked Society at SXSW - Liz Gannes - Social. Our networked society has a talent for fear-mongering, said Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd in a speech at SXSW Interactive in Austin on Saturday. Information overload makes us numb, but things that freak us out have a rare ability to break through and capture our attention, Boyd said. As she put it, “The attention economy provides fertile ground for the culture of fear.” Everyday negative occurrences can seem more important because social media documents them and makes them visible. Boyd noted that a story of a mugging or a personal experience with bullying is what sticks in our minds, much more so than rational information. “Fear cannot be combated through data,” she said. In fact, examining historical data shows that kids bullying each other actually isn’t on the rise, Boyd contended.
Boyd called on social media toolmakers to consider how their creations may be repurposed to spread negativity. She said she didn’t have a solution to offer, but wanted to start a discussion. [STUDY] Your Facebook Friends Influence How You Feel. “A cute baby dolphin for your weekend-viewing pleasure” a Facebook friend of mine writes. Under the text, I see a link to an imgur-hosted image of that amazingly adorable marine mammal.
Suddenly, my day is feeling a lot better. Did I just catch a mood… on Facebook? A new study by Facebook data scientists shows that Facebook users can spread emotions to their friends through messages, posts and status updates. It suggests that emotional contagion happens quite frequently on the world’s biggest social network. Facebook’s Chief Data Scientist Adam Kramer presented these findings at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology on January 27, 2012. “It’s time to rethink how emotional contagion works, since vocal cues and mimicry aren’t needed,” said Kramer. To test this out, Kramer used a program that identified words implying positive and negative emotions in Facebook status updates.
Did friends view a users’ updates from three days before? Most Adults Go Online for No Particular Reason [STUDY] Americans are going online to pass the time more than they were just a few years ago, according to a new study. A report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that about 53% of young adults ages 18 to 29 go online on any given day for no particular reason except for a diversion or just for fun. About 81% of people in this demographic said they have done so at least occasionally. The study — conducted among 2,260 adults ages 18 and over on landlines and cellphones — has a margin of error of 3.7%. But it’s not just young web users that turn to the Internet during their down time — about 58% of all adults or 74% of online adults said they use the Internet this way, up from 45% of adults who said they did so in a Pew survey conducted in 2006.
Pew noted that the growth of people using the Internet as a “destination for fun” coincides with the rise of broadband connections, social networking and video. Study: Half of UK kids feel ‘sad’ without Internet, while many feel ‘lonely’ The level of emotional dependency on the Internet among Britain’s youth has been revealed by the results of a new study conducted by research firm Intersperience. The results show that those under 12 years of age have a strong emotional connection with the net, with half claiming they would be “sad” without web access, while teens scored even higher, with 60 percent saying they’d also feel “sad”. The Digital Futures project questioned 1,000 youngsters between 8 and 18 years of age in an attempt to better understand how online and digital technology affects their lives.
Forty-eight percent of teens said they’d feel “lonely” without the Internet, which was more than twice the number of under 12s, no doubt reflecting the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter among the older members of the survey group. Indeed, more than 70 percent of teens questioned in the survey said they chat on Facebook. [Image: Maresol / Shutterstock] William Shatner Addresses "Star Trek" Vs. "Star Wars" My Life Without Facebook: A Social Experiment. Social Media Trumps Driving Among Today's Teens.
Are we on information overload? Nielsen: U.S. teens exchange 7 text messages per waking hour. What happens on the Internet in 60 seconds. Twitter reaches 3 million tweets per day in South Korea. I want to be connected. But why? Poll: Over 50 percent of users are worried about Facebook Timeline. Why People Have Fake Facebook Profiles.
Study: Why Facebook is making people sad. The Internet Isn’t Just Another TV Pipe. Teens Don't Live in Public on Social Media Sites. Social Media's Slow Slog Into the Ivory Towers of Academia - Josh Sternberg - Technology. Social Media: The Three Big Myths. We’re bored of social networking. Social Media: Leveraging Opportunity vs. Wasting Time. Social Networking Habits: 54 Percent of Users are Addicted, Webroot Research Finds -- BROOMFIELD, Colo., Aug. 16.