Press ‘A’ for addition.
Sergio Chaparro’s information-technology students had more than just a healthy attachment to their cell phones.
When he asked them to shut them off for three days, they panicked.
“They were afraid. They were truly
afraid,” Chaparro, then an instructor at Rutgers University in New
Jersey, recalled of the assignment last year. “They thought it was
going to be a painful experience, and they were right.”
Only three of about 220 students
managed to complete the assignment. To Chaparro, now an assistant
professor at Simmons College in Boston, the experiment confirmed what
he strongly suspected was a widespread psychological dependence on cell
phones.
“I think it’s critical that people realize their level of dependency, and possibly do something about it,” he said.
Business executives. Soccer moms.
Travelers. Teenagers. All of them adore their cell phones. But when
does love turn into addiction?
A Korean study found recently that
nearly a third of high school students showed signs of addiction,
including paranoia, when they were without their phones, and two-thirds
were “constantly worried” that they would miss a text message when
their phones were off.
In Britain, researchers concluded
that people are so intimately connected with their cell phones that
they see them as “an essential item, an extension of self.”
Personally, I know I use the
phone a lot, but it’s not my only or nearly even largest form of
communication. I spend about 12 hours a day talking with co-workers as
we’re driving and working together – there’s rarely a moment where we
aren’t talking.
With the phone, I’ve averaged 35 minutes a day over the last year.
Online, ok, spend an exceedingly great amount of time talking here, but
the face-to-face time whoops it up. Go ahead, tell me I’m an addict to
the phone/IM/e-mail/face-to-face interaction.
It’s not open to the public,
