LEARNING INTENTIONS

To engage with and respond to texts that explore how technology keeps hooked. 

Opinion Piece

Computer Games Are Affecting Our Kids

Ever gotten so angry after losing a computer game that you have thrown the controller at the floor and punched the wall resulting in very sore knuckle? I have. Yes I admit I myself am a computer game addict and  even though I love them, I hate what they do to me. Computer games are time wasting, brain damaging, gold digging, fattening, aggravating distractions to normal life and for some reason most kids of our generation are growing up with a second life behind a screen.  Whether they're the star player for Manchester United, a soldier in Afghanistan or the fastest car racer in the world.

A computer gamer would likely play an average of one hour of computer games a week day and two hours on weekends. That's 9 hours a week which is 468 hours a year. That's 19 days each year that you have spent looking at a screen pressing buttons that determine which pixels go what colour next. That's all. Imagine what you could do with 19 days instead of playing computer games.

Counter Strike is a computer game where two teams are put on a map replicating somewhere around the world and one teams has to plant a bomb whilst the other has to stop them before it explodes. Both sets of players are pretty much out to kill one another. The two teams are called terrorists and counter terrorists. In a place called Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers  are destroying civilian blocks in cities killing hundreds of people traumatising families, threatening the world and making news everywhere. This is what Counter Strike is teaching you to do.

As I stated earlier a gamer can spend up to 19 days a year sitting down staring at a screen. Now the most movement you would do (excluding Wii, Play station Move or other interactive consoles) would be pressing your thumbs down on a controller. Gaming is a very fattening hobby because you are sitting. There are lots of great hobbies that can also burn calories like taking up golf, for example.

These days the value of a new release computer game such as Tomb Raider cost 79 dollars in stores. This computer game may last a month until you have completed it or have given up on it. 80 dollars for a month of entertainment seems an alright deal. I mean once you set up with your 300 dollar console and two 75 dollar controls in addition to a screen that could cost possible thousands. Compare that to the fact that for 40 dollars you can feed a family in a third world country for a month and somehow this hobby seems to cost a lot more than you think.

In conclusion I don't want for computer games to be banned I just want their usage to be justified so that our generation grows up knowing more than how to arrange pixels on a screen so that we can feel that we have accomplished something we really haven't.   

Author

Tony Rao: Visiting Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry, King's College London

The word “addiction” brings to mind alcohol and drugs. Yet, over the past 20 years, a new type of addiction has emerged: addiction to social media. It may not cause physical harms, such as those caused by tobacco and alcohol, but it has the potential to cause long-term damage to our emotions, behaviour and relationships.

While the older generation – those born in the baby boom period shortly after World War II – had alcohol and drugs as their vice, the younger generation – the so-called millenials – have social media as theirs. The millennials, born between 1984 and 2005, have embraced the digital age, using technology to relax and interact with others. Social media is a big deal for them; it is a lifeline to the outside world.

Although people of all ages use social media, it is more harmful for younger users than it is for older people.

All consuming

Addiction may seem a bit of a strong word to use in the context of social media, but addiction refers to any behaviour that is pleasurable and is the only reason to get through the day. Everything else pales into insignificance. Millennials may not get liver damage or lung cancer from social media, but it can be damaging nonetheless.

The harm lies in their change in behaviour. Their addiction means spending increasing amount of time online to produce the same pleasurable effect, and it means social media is the main activity they engage in above all others. It also means taking away attention from other tasks, experiencing unpleasant feelings from reducing or stopping interaction with social media and restarting the activity very soon after stopping completely.

We should also be concerned about the effect of social media on sleep and doing less “offline”, such as making time for work responsibilities and direct face-to-face social interaction. It has also been linked to depression and loneliness, both of which may be the cause or the effect of social media addiction.

Millennials report compulsively checking social network profiles and updates. They can make riskier decisions and be open to online exploitation. They often mistakenly believe that, if things go wrong, they will get help from their online community, even if this community consists of relative strangers.

Lacking self-reflection

Most of us rely partly on the ability to reflect on our thinking, feeling and behaving to form our own self-image. The problem with social media is that self-image relies mainly on others and their opinions. A recent study found higher narcissism (an exaggerated self-image of intelligence, academic reputation or attractiveness) in millennial college students, compared with previous generations. This does not bode well for a society where self-reflection is key to making informed and balanced decisions.

The digital age has changed the nature of addictions in millennials, who have replaced one maladaptive behaviour with another. Social media certainly looks as if it has replaced alcohol as a way of social interaction with others. It is perhaps no surprise that, over the past ten years, there has been a 20% rise in the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds who are teetotal. Ten years ago it was 17%. It is now 24%. Spending time online now seems more desirable than spending time in a pub with friends.

There is no recognised treatment for social media addiction. Although we are starting to become aware of the problem, there is no classification of social media addiction as a mental disorder in the same way as substance misuse. If we want this to happen, there needs to be a clearer definition of the symptoms and progression over time. We will need to answer some key questions, such as: does it run in families? Are there blood tests that can distinguish it from other mental disorders? And will it respond to drugs or psychological therapies? We still have more questions than answers.

Authors

Raian Ali: Associate Professor in Computing and Informatics, Bournemouth University

Emily Arden-Close: Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Bournemouth University

John McAlaney: Principal Academic in Psychology, Bournemouth University

The World Health Organisation is to include “gaming disorder”, the inability to stop gaming, into the International Classification of Diseases. By doing so, the WHO is recognising the serious and growing problem of digital addiction. The problem has also been acknowledged by Google, which recently announced that it will begin focusing on “Digital Well-being”.

Although there is a growing recognition of the problem, users are still not aware of exactly how digital technology is designed to facilitate addiction. We’re part of a research team that focuses on digital addiction and here are some of the techniques and mechanisms that digital media use to keep you hooked.

Compulsive checking

Digital technologies, such as social networks, online shopping, and games, use a set of persuasive and motivational techniques to keep users returning. These include “scarcity” (a snap or status is only temporarily available, encouraging you to get online quickly); “social proof” (20,000 users retweeted an article so you should go online and read it); “personalisation” (your news feed is designed to filter and display news based on your interest); and “reciprocity” (invite more friends to get extra points, and once your friends are part of the network it becomes much more difficult for you or them to leave).

Technology is designed to utilise the basic human need to feel a sense of belonging and connection with others. So, a fear of missing out, commonly known as FoMO, is at the heart of many features of social media design.

Groups and forums in social media promote active participation. Notifications and “presence features” keep people notified of each others’ availability and activities in real-time so that some start to become compulsive checkers. This includes “two ticks” on instant messaging tools, such as Whatsapp. Users can see whether their message has been delivered and read. This creates pressure on each person to respond quickly to the other.

The concepts of reward and infotainment, material which is both entertaining and informative, are also crucial for “addictive” designs. In social networks, it is said that “no news is not good news”. So, their design strives always to provide content and prevent disappointment. The seconds of anticipation for the “pull to refresh” mechanism on smartphone apps, such as Twitter, is similar to pulling the lever of a slot machine and waiting for the win.

Most of the features mentioned above have roots in our non-tech world. Social networking sites have not created any new or fundamentally different styles of interaction between humans. Instead they have vastly amplified the speed and ease with which these interactions can occur, taking them to a higher speed, and scale.

Addiction and awareness

People using digital media do exhibit symptoms of behavioural addiction. These include salience, conflict, and mood modification when they check their online profiles regularly. Often people feel the need to engage with digital devices even if it is inappropriate or dangerous for them to do so. If disconnected or unable to interact as desired, they become preoccupied with missing opportunities to engage with their online social networks.

According to the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom, 15m UK internet users (around 34% of all internet users) have tried a “digital detox”. After being offline, 33% of participants reported feeling an increase in productivity, 27% felt a sense of liberation, and 25% enjoyed life more. But the report also highlighted that 16% of participants experienced the fear of missing out, 15% felt lost and 14% “cut-off”. These figures suggest that people want to spend less time online, but they may need help to do so.

At the moment, tools that enable people to be in control of their online experience, presence and online interaction remain very primitive. There seem to be unwritten expectations for users to adhere to social norms of cyberspace once they accept participation.

But unlike other mediums for addiction, such as alcohol, technology can play a role  in making its usage more informed and conscious. It is possible to detect whether someone is using a phone or social network in an anxious, uncontrolled manner. Similar to online gambling, users should have available help if they wish. This could be a self-exclusion and lock-out scheme. Users can allow software to alert them when their usage pattern indicates risk.

The borderline between software which is legitimately immersive and software which can be seen as “exploitation-ware” remains an open question. Transparency of digital persuasion design and education about critical digital literacy could be potential solutions.

Author

Natasha Mauthner: Personal Chair, University of Aberdeen

We all know the scare stories. Growing numbers of people are becoming addicted to the internet and constantly checking their digital gadgets. They are steadily disconnecting us from real life, real relationships and real meaning. To this supposed problem of digital dependence, an antidote has been emerging: the “digital detox” retreat. Companies are advertising technology-free resorts, holiday packages, city breaks and summer camps.

One operator has even trademarked the concept. Digital Detox® LLC is a Californian travel company that’s motto is “disconnect to reconnect”. Its customers are offered a “restorative” break on a ranch in northern California including yoga, meditation, hiking, art and organic food, with no digital devices allowed. At a destination named Camp Grounded, campers are promised a chance to get back to childhood – “with campfire songs instead of YouTube videos, and board games instead of Angry Birds”.

And if you were thinking this was only in America, you would be wrong. The Westin in Dublin offers a digital detox minibreak to “give you the chance to escape from all that electronic chatter”. Liberate yourself, the website reads, from your smartphone, laptop and gadgets and replace all that digital clutter with relaxation and renewal.

In a similar vein is Unplugged: How to Live Mindfully in a Digital World, by Orianna Fielding, whose London-based Digital Detox Company provides training and retreats for people and businesses. The book gives readers “techniques that teach you how to manage your online world in a healthy way”, including step-by-step detoxing programmes that can last from a few minutes to a weekend.

Many of us are instinctively moving in a similar direction. People are creating technology-free times and zones at home, turning notifications off on their mobile phones and hiding technology from their children or limiting its use. At certain times of day, some people close their email or switch off their internet routers

Another view

The difficulty with all of this is that it identifies the wrong problem. Talking about internet addiction starts from the premise that the technology is intrinsically bad and therefore needs to be rationed. In reality technology is neither good nor bad, but simply a means to an end. The notion of living without it is virtually inconceivable. Many of the things we used to do, from buying groceries to calling parents to writing postcards, are now things that we either do or substitute using digital technology.

It doesn’t mean to say that spending your life online is necessarily a good thing, but detox is not the answer. It may provide temporary respite, but we have to make up for it as soon as we plug back in. What is the point of coming home after an offline mini-break only to face 200-plus new emails in your inbox?

Unplugging also increases the onus on individuals to manage their digitally dependent lives. It becomes the responsibility of employees to develop strategies to deal effectively with the likes of large volume of emails – a workload unknown to previous generations.

More meaningful discussions

The more pressing issue is how these technologies are being used to create and sustain the market economy that we live in. Online retailers can collect data on our purchases and preferences and sell this information on to advertisers, turning us into commodities. Engaging effectively in social media and professional networking sites requires constant updating of our profiles and content so that we become marketable individuals. Email can be used as a tool to raise our productivity by making us available outside working hours.

I come up against some of this in my own working life as a university lecturer, at a time when the student-lecturer relationship is moving from learner-teacher to customer-service provider. Students frequently email me about lectures they increasingly do not attend, and questions that I have already answered in the course handbook and on our website. In a sense, these emails require me to do my job twice.

But responding still matters in a context where student satisfaction feeds into university rankings, and academics are under pressure to help make their institutions more marketable. For years I responded by repeating the information, but recently I introduced a policy that they could only email me to arrange a one-to-one meeting, while strongly encouraging them to ask any questions during lectures and tutorials. I now ignore most other emails.

The number of student emails in my inbox has since decreased and I am having many more meaningful discussions with my students at lectures, tutorials and one-on-one meetings. Digital detox would have had no answer to this problem, except to postpone dealing with the emails. Instead I have both reduced my email traffic and, more importantly, restored my identity as a teacher and my students’ identities as learners.

A little recalibration

Individuals and organisations are also changing how they use email in other sectors. Daimler, the German car and truck manufacturer, implemented a new programme last year that allowed employees to set their email software to automatically delete incoming emails while on annual leave. This “mail on holiday” programme issued an out-of-office reply indicating that the email would be deleted and for pressing matters, offered the contact information of another employee.

All of this goes much further than email, of course. Social media in the Arab Spring became the key medium for organising the protests that overthrew governments. Social media is used to bring about social change, not just share the latest selfie.

Disconnecting from digital technologies is like sticking our heads in the sand. It prevents us from asking how technologies are changing our lives in particular ways and whether it is for the better. It also stops us from reclaiming these technologies and re-purposing them for different goals and values.