I look at my students as class is about to begin, and I see a sea of phones being rapidly finger-punched to hurl yet more zeros and ones into the ether. Why? What is it that makes this so inviting if not addictive?
Well, it's two things: the need for connection with others, and the intermittent reward that texts and emails and the like provide. Humans are driven to connect, like all mammals. We don't do well with isolation. We first get lonely, then irritable, then depressed. I am convinced many psychopathologies are at their core forms of emotional isolation. This goes back actually to attachment theory (another blog to be written here).
The phone or other electronic connection device appears at first to be ideal to satisfy our social needs: it is a quick way for us to converse and be assured that someone is actually thinking about us. The problem, of course, is that this is a pseudo-social connection. There is no gazing into someones eyes, at their face or body, no proximity to gauge, no tone of voice to measure, no touch to appreciate. The very heart of communication is missing from electronics. We can't really assess what our real connection is to that person. Even a phone conversation, a dying art, is not very personal. It appears to us as if this is real connection, however, because we do get a bit of dopamine, and a few other neurochemicals, when we perceive that a social interaction and connection has been made (there is lots of potential research to be done here).
Psychology informs us that when a reward (the text, the Face Book post, etc.) is perceived, and when that reward appears at intervals that are unpredictable (texts arrive without warning), we get unusually attached to it. This comes from the Behavioral Perspective and is well-researched. Further, we potentiate the cycle of rewards with our own behavior, such as when we send a text or make a post in response.
I fear all this is eroding social skills and making us all socially insensitive if not callous.
I have never sent a text and never will, but I am a Face Book poster, and for that I feel weak and wanting.
Well, it's two things: the need for connection with others, and the intermittent reward that texts and emails and the like provide. Humans are driven to connect, like all mammals. We don't do well with isolation. We first get lonely, then irritable, then depressed. I am convinced many psychopathologies are at their core forms of emotional isolation. This goes back actually to attachment theory (another blog to be written here).
The phone or other electronic connection device appears at first to be ideal to satisfy our social needs: it is a quick way for us to converse and be assured that someone is actually thinking about us. The problem, of course, is that this is a pseudo-social connection. There is no gazing into someones eyes, at their face or body, no proximity to gauge, no tone of voice to measure, no touch to appreciate. The very heart of communication is missing from electronics. We can't really assess what our real connection is to that person. Even a phone conversation, a dying art, is not very personal. It appears to us as if this is real connection, however, because we do get a bit of dopamine, and a few other neurochemicals, when we perceive that a social interaction and connection has been made (there is lots of potential research to be done here).
Psychology informs us that when a reward (the text, the Face Book post, etc.) is perceived, and when that reward appears at intervals that are unpredictable (texts arrive without warning), we get unusually attached to it. This comes from the Behavioral Perspective and is well-researched. Further, we potentiate the cycle of rewards with our own behavior, such as when we send a text or make a post in response.
I fear all this is eroding social skills and making us all socially insensitive if not callous.
I have never sent a text and never will, but I am a Face Book poster, and for that I feel weak and wanting.
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