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mobiles
This page considers 'mobile phone addiction' and 'email
addiction'.
It covers -
introduction
Claims of addiction to other communication and entertainment
devices - including mobile phones, Blackberries, television
sets, pinball machines and video game equipment - provide
a perspective on debate about internet addiction or computer
addiction.
Compared to assertions that cyberaddiction affects 25%
of the office population or that 40% of the overall population
is "at risk" the claims by proponents of "mobile
addiction", "tele-addiction" or "SMS
addiction" often appear quite muted.
That is perhaps because many people use mobile phones
and because mobiles, in contrast to the internet, have
not been fetishised as miraculous/demonic.
Diana James of QUT fretted in 2006 (PDF)
that
Mobile
phone addiction is going to surpass internet addiction
because at least you can walk away from your computer
... our dependency on mobiles means most people are
never without them.
Perhaps
comfort can be taken in the short life of many mobile
phone batteries.
Lee Hae-gyoung, a Korea Cyber University professor, similarly
claimed that 20% of the South Korean mobile phone population
"displays symptoms of addiction". Mobile addiction
was claimed to be "much worse than Internet addiction"
and "just as dangerous as substance addiction like
alcohol or drugs". South Koreans "addicted to
mobile devices have trouble living a normal life".
James elsewhere commented that "a wide range of adverse
consequences for addictive mobile phone consumers"
includes "damaged relationships, emotional stress
and falling literacy" in addition to debt and tiredness.
symptoms
What are the symptoms? One popular account suggests that
a user may be addicted if answering 'yes' to any of five
questions -
1.
Do you get anxious if you don’t get an instant
response to an SMS?
2. Does the thought of turning your mobile off send
you into a shiver?
3. When you go out to dinner, do you sit the mobile
on the table in front of you?
4. Do you feel unloved if your phone doesn't ring, ding
or zing for a few hours?
5. When you hop off a plane or finish a movie, is the
first thing you do to check your phone?
Would we regard a daily hot bath/shower as representing
a 'water addiction' across 80% of the population?
As with cyberaddiction, there is no international consensus
-
- that
mobile phone (or SMS) addiction exists
- that
it affects more than a handful of people (possibly not
many more people than those addicted to interpretive
dance, collecting doilies or playing with model trains)
- about
the identification of its symptoms
- whether
it is caused by the device or is an expression of underlying
problems
- about
appropriate treatment.
As
with cyberaddiction it is not recognised in the leading
diagnostic manuals, such as the DSM.
As with notions of cyberaddiction the mass media have
uncritically embraced some of the more lurid assertions
of mobile addiction, for example that "2 billion
people worldwide are now hooked on a mobile phone"
and that "4 out of 10 young adults in Spain are considered
mobile phone addicts".
A more nuanced comment might be that the severity of that
'addiction' varies and can be distinguishable from traditional
addictions such as that to heroin, with for example no
sweats, stomach cramps and hallucinations or other nastiness
when going cold turkey or simply being out of mobile range.
responses
Responses have varied. One Australian writer questioned
the empirical basis of the claim that mobile addiction
is going to surpass internet addiction, asking why mobile
addiction had not previously become apparent after a decade
of use by much of the Australian population and what are
the regulatory implications.
Are mobiles to be sold with cigarette-style health warning
stickers? Is government funding to be diverted from heroin
and alcohol treatment facilities to mobile phone addiction
counselling centres?
South Korea, in a display of the anxieties discussed by
Golub & Lingley's perceptive 2008 'Just Like the Qing
Empire' paper, reportedly considered what was described
as a 'curfew' to
limit the "amount of time teenagers spend on their
phones".
Therapists have leveraged popular concern regarding mobile
addiction, with publicity for online treatment or mobile
treatment of "SMS addiction" and clinics offering
face to face treatment for such a disorder.
Two accounts are provided Woong Ki Park's 'Mobile Phone
Addiction' in Mobile Communications: Re-Negotiation
of the Social Sphere (London: Springer 2003) edited
by Richard Ling & Paul Pedersen, the 2006 'Exploring
Addictive Consumption of Mobile Phone Technology' (PDF)
by Diana James & Judy Drennan.
crackberry addiction?
The mass media - on slow news days - have embraced the
notion of 'email addiction' or 'crackberry addiction',
with a syndicated item in 2006 fretting that
Blackberry email devices can be so addictive that owners
may need to be weaned off them with treatment similar
to that given to drug users, experts warned today. They
said the palmtop gadgets, which have been nicknamed
'crackberries' because users quickly become hooked on
them, could be seriously damaging to mental health.
[One study] claims the Blackberry is fuelling a rise
in email and internet addiction, with sufferers able
to survive only a few minutes without checking for new
mail. One key sign of a user being addicted is if they
focus on their Blackberry ignoring those around them.
... the effects of becoming addicted to the device can
be 'devastating'
That
study, alas, was led by business school academics rather
than by medical specialists. One might thus be a tad wary
of claims that equate email abuse or mere bad manners
and boredom with "chemical or substance addictions"
and warn that "Addiction to technology can be equally
damaging to a worker's mental health".
Study author Nada Kakabadse is reported as warning that
'a worrying 33 per cent of us' are becoming addicted to
the internet, a conclusion possibly based on surveys that
may privilege self-characterised addiction.
Co-author Gayle Porter commented that "the fast and
relentless pace of technology-enhanced work environments
creates a source of stimulation that may become addictive",
arguing that
Information
and communication technology (ICT) addiction has been
treated by policy makers as a kind of elephant in the
room - everyone sees it, but no one wants to acknowledge
it directly. Owing to vested interests of the employers
and the ICT industry, signs of possible addiction -
excess use of ICT and related stress illnesses - are
often ignored.
Elsewhere she had claimed that a workaholic is "an
individual tendency to pursue one thing to the exclusion
of all others", with employers "becoming enablers
to this workaholic addiction through technology such as
BlackBerrys and e-mail" and that "The trend
is toward companies 'expecting' employees to be available
24/7 because the technological capability exists".
Porter suggested that
If
people work longer hours for personal enrichment, they
assume the risk. However, if an employer manipulates
an individual's propensity toward workaholism or technology
addiction for the employer's benefit, the legal perspective
shifts. When professional advancement (or even survival)
seems to depend on 24/7 connectivity, it becomes increasingly
difficult to distinguish between choice and manipulation.
'Addicted to technology' by Nada Kakabadse, Gayle Porter
& David Vance in 18(4) Business Strategy Review
(2007), 81-85 does not necessarily damp scepticism. From
an Australian perspective the issues highlighted by Kakabadse
et al might be effectively addressed through existing
tort law and workplace safety legislation rather than
through establishment of a new medical disorder.
Australian courts appear to be unpersuaded by 2007 claims
in the UK Independent that
one
employer had to pay substantial damages to a woman who
was so distracted by her BlackBerry while driving that
she crashed and killed a motorcyclist. In another, a
woman took action after putting cleaning fluid on her
baby's nappy instead of baby oil because she was distracted
by her BlackBerry.
Calls
on your mobile while driving are not a surefire way of
minimising responsibility; why is a Blackberry different?
Perhaps the landline can be ignored when it is nappy time?
next page (television
addiction)
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