Civil Bytes: Forget Ghosts And Goblins, Fear Those Handheld Devices
As we prep for a night out with monsters and ghouls, the thing you should be frightened of is the technology at your fingertips.
As the clock ticked past midnight last Sunday and my eyes stared wide open at a ghostly shadow on the ceiling, I remembered reading long ago that, if you can鈥檛 sleep, get out of bed.
So I quietly crept out of the sack and down to the couch, where I picked up my tablet and turned on my LED television, only to be horrified when I remembered that .
I was scared.
And then I watched, for what felt like the eighth time, what seems like a six-minute commercial for . My eyes wide open. The clock now ticking toward 2 a.m. Sleep nowhere to be found. Palm leaves tapping the window like the fingernails of death.
Now I was really scared!
I averted my eyes from the blinding television and concentrated on reading the latest gadget news on my tablet. But the light, the LED light! Was reading of leading me down the path to blissful slumber, or was every second staring at the screen adding another two seconds of awake time?
The blue light streamed out from the screen and into my eyes like daggers. It wasn鈥檛 only murdering my melatonin production, it was making me . Yikes!
Then a comforting memory entered my weary brain: I wouldn鈥檛 have to turn my device off (the horror!) because I had to filter out the demon blue light waves boring holes directly into my REM sleep!
I鈥檇 never felt so relieved. It was as if, with undead walkers bearing down, ready to eat my flesh, I was whisked to safety.
The blue light streamed out from the screen and into my eyes like daggers. It wasn鈥檛 only murdering my melatonin production, it was making me more susceptible to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Yikes!
As I turned to more mindless tech news on my device-in-hand, I started thinking about how scary it was that I just instinctively picked up this device. Not a book. Not even a magazine. An Internet-connected device that feeds my insatiable appetite for more.
More information. More updates. More likes. More, more, more.
I also read something once, definitely via the Internet, that there鈥檚 some sort of dopamine (which is your brain鈥檚 chemical reward for pleasure) rush triggered by the very notion of there being 鈥渕ore鈥 whatever.
According to an article in , 鈥渁nticipating the reward of new content for completing a task can excite the neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, which releases the neurotransmitter dopamine into the brain’s pleasure centers.鈥
In other words, if you see a link (anticipation) and something appears when you click on it (reward), you experience pleasure. You are the dog and the entire Internet is Pavlov鈥檚 doggie treat. (I wonder if Pavlov had a Soggy Doggy Doormat?)
As scary as it sounds, there is a real disorder, called 鈥,鈥 which researchers say has 鈥渟imilarities with substance use, impulse control disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.鈥 And although the older 鈥淚nternet addiction disorder鈥 apparently originated from a hoax, according to , more how excessive Internet usage impacts our lives.
Previously, when I thought about Internet addiction, I just thought, 鈥淲ell put the darn phone down!鈥 Now, I鈥檓 worried that I might have the symptoms! And it鈥檚 scary!
It鈥檚 like all of those horror movies, when, 10聽minutes in, you鈥檙e already yelling at the screen, 鈥淲hy would you go into that dark building after you heard those screams?”
Except this is real life. And you know that if you click on that link, you鈥檒l . You know it鈥檚 not adding any value to your life. But you just keep clicking.
What time is it? I have to get some sleep. It’s almost Halloween, you know. Have you seen that article about the 鈥淭he 57 greatest pet costumes?鈥 It鈥檚 online. Right .
Go ahead, click it.
