Why you should be talking about technology addiction and mental health

Modern Technology Advances

The advances we have seen in modern information technology now give us all the ability to access vast amounts of information at our fingertips. It gives us the ability to connect with friends, family, peers, and various resources from around the globe without having to leave our home.

There are a lot of great things that technology affords us but excessive use can have consequences that can impact our relationships, anxiety, depression, loneliness, reduced academic performance, or work performance (Singerson, Li, Cheung, & Cheng, 2017).

Middle aged adults have been found to have a better ability to cope with boredom than younger adults (Singerson et al., 2017). It is no wonder that children, adolescents and young adults that have grown up with the technology have a greater prevalence of technology addiction (Wang, Sigerson, & Cheng, 2019). However, each generation has different experiences, preferences, and tendencies when using technology which is why identifying factors for technology addiction should not rely on age alone (Wang et al., 2019).

Symptoms of Addiction

Internet addiction, internet gaming disorder, smartphone addiction, and social media addiction are fairly new forms of addiction. All have common patterns and symptoms. People with a technology addiction have a desire to have instant gratification, rewards, and rely on graphics to communicate (Wang et al., 2019). According to Singerson et al. (2017), common symptoms for technology addictions include:

·      Withdrawal – where the user experiences agitation or restlessness when they are not connected;

·      Tolerance – a need to increase the duration and intensity of the amount of time they spend with technology;

·      Impaired functioning – they experience a disconnect from their relationships and disturb their productivity.

As the different forms of technology addiction share similar signs and symptoms, the addiction should be looked at along a spectrum (Singerson et al., 2017).

The Positive Impacts of a Technology Addiction

For those individuals that intentionally hold back personal information from others and will not express themselves face to face, technology can provide a method to express themselves. In being able to use different forms of technology to communicate, technology can improve an individual’s wellbeing by helping them to increase their social interactions, communicate positively, create an online community, and build relationships (Magsamen-Contrad, Billotte-Verhoff, & Greene, 2014).

References

Magsamen-Conrad, K., Billotte-Verhoff, C., Greene, K. (2014). Technology addiction’s contribution to mental wellbeing: The positive effect on social capital. Computers in Human Behaviour, 40(2014), 23-30.

Singerson, L., Li, A., Cheung, M., Cheng, C. (2017). Examining common information technology addictions and their relationships with non-technology-related addictions. Computers in Human Behaviour, 75(2017), 520-526.

Wang, H., Sigerson, L., Cheng, C. (2019). Digital nativity and information technology addiction: age cohort versus individual different approaches. Computers in Human Behaviour, 90(2019), 1-9.