The Challenge of "Media-Addicted" Consumers, Employees, and Citizens

In a recent Trends issue, we chronicled the emergence of The Connected Generation,¹ a demographic that has never experienced a world without the Internet, mobile devices, and social networking; they are continuously connecting, communicating, searching, computing, editing, and clicking.  While they still use their cell phones for “live conversations,” increasingly, they connect with family members, friends, and business contacts using nontraditional channels such as texting, Facebook, and YouTube.

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In our March 2010 issue, we highlighted a research study by Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA.² His research assessed the effects of spending hours every day interacting with computers and other digital devices.  The objective was to identify actual physiological changes taking place in the brain.

One interesting finding confirms that on-going interaction creates a state of “continuous partial attention.”  In this state, a person is keeping tabs on numerous unrelated bits of incoming information, while never completely focusing his or her concentration on anything.  As a result, these people are always scanning the environment for changes and for incoming signals.  These activities include constantly checking voice mails, e-mails, text messages, and chat lists while navigating inside a web of social connections.

Small’s team concluded that people in a state of continuous partial attention exhibit a number of adverse symptoms like feeling tired, distracted, and irritable, and even slipping into a “chronic state of stress” due to a false sense of crisis.

One effect that Small’s study did not address was the “sense of dependence” that persistent connection to digital devices may cause.

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Many people, especially members of the Connected Generation, appear to be dependent on their technology, even to the point of addiction.  Until now, however, this assessment has been based solely on anecdotal evidence.

But now, a new study recently released by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) at the University of Maryland, appears to confirm the widely-held belief in “digital addiction,” at least by some definitions of the word.³

The study involved around 1,000 students in 10 different countries.  To gauge their level of dependency, these students were asked to abstain from all media use for 24 hours.  They then submitted their results, including what they did and how they felt.  The researchers compiled the results and reported the surpr... To read the full article, you must be a Trends Magazine Subscriber. To learn more, click here