Look at this bullshit non-journalism covering some bullshit non-research: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7253493.stm

"Some people are very anxious when they don't have their technological gadgets next to them.

"They might get into trouble with their employers as they spend more and more time checking messages."

Boo hoo.....

The word 'addiction' is totally inappropriate here, as it usually implies severe negative consequences to continued use. Compare these 'negative' consequences to those of, say, heroin addiction, and you'll see what I mean.

They don’t call ‘breathing’ an addiction do they. No, this communications technology It’s just another technological augmentation of the human body – it’s how humans work – how they move forward – do you call ‘getting a bus to work’ every day an ‘addiction’? No you don’t. So what’s the difference here? The difference is that things are accelerating. People are scared, and they’re wasting their lives doing meaningless research - “You would be surprised how many people had their PDA or Blackberry next to their bed heads.” No I wouldn’t! Have you seen kids? Have you seen a mobile phone?!

It makes me sick that we need to a fucking ‘warning’ now because some people might ‘wake up in the night’. The technology is not the problem here – it’s the information people are expecting – if it’s something important, why wouldn’t somebody want to know as soon as possible?

A friend of mine contests that "addiction occurs when you have an inability to stop something, even when you want to. " In response I would say "would you want to stop using a mobile phone?" Not really. Partly because loads of stuff would become really inconvenient, but also because everybody else has one and if you didn’t then you’d be socially disadvantaged. It’s the Red Queen. A fact of life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_queen

Personally I'm pretty excited about the rate of technological change. Maybe I'm angry because so many other people are too scared to embrace it.

Tags: news, technology, thought