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development of children and adolescents. Indeed, the term “Internet Addiction Disorder”
will be included for the first time in the forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (or DSM 5), the American Psychiatric Association's list of recognized
mental ailments. Larry Rosen, psychology department chair at Cal State Dominguez
Hills, argues in a new book that heavy users of digital devices exhibit symptoms that
mimic common psychological disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disor-
der (ADHD), narcissistic personality disorder, depression and obsessive compulsive dis-
order. “Children live in this world where the technology is never off, their [smart]phone
is never off and they even sleep with it,” says Rosen, author of iDisorder: Understanding
Our Obsession With Technology And Overcoming Its Hold On Us (Palgrave/Macmillan; May
2012). “This fosters a very short attention span and not just in kids. You can get about
three to five minutes of focus before your attention is directed to technology. All the re-
search [findings] are consistent, spanning middle-school students to medical-school stu-
dents to people in the work world.That is our reality.”
It's a reality some parents address, often in exasperation, by taking away a teenager’s
wireless mobile device (what Rosen calls “WMDs”). I, for one, snatched my daughter
Maddy’s iPhone away after opening her bedroom door to see how her homework was
coming along. She was sitting on her bed in a digital vortex, flanked by her iPhone and
iPad, the computer screen open to a couple of windows. Her friend Hannah’s face floated
in the screen’s corner in live video chat mode. All the while, her iPhone pinged with text
messages and her iPad was open to a Facebook friend’s page.
Yet she was “studying” for an honors biology test.
All this obsessive multitasking is producing what seems aptly described as “popcorn
brain” by David Levy, a University of Washington Information School professor. It's a
brain hyper-trained for the speed and stimulation of constant electronic multitasking,
making the slower, real-time pace of corporeal life—which may include studying for a bi-
ology test—far less exciting. Will seizing the iPhone and iPad and limiting her to one
screen help?
Rosen is not so sure. “Even if you take away her smartphone and her laptop, she will
interrupt from inside of her head,” explains Rosen. “They are constantly wondering if
someone texted me, or who called me.”That was the crux of a study on focus conducted
by Rosen and his research team, who observed nearly 300 middle-school, high-school
and university students studying in their own home? environment for 15 minutes. Stu-
dents lasted just three minutes before their cellphone or laptop derailed their concentra-
tion ( as also happened with medical students and computer programmers). Study
participants and thousands more students told researchers they could not resist respond-
ing to the plethora of beeps, vibrations and flashes pulsing from their digital devices.
The impulse to react immediately to a cellphone ping stems in part from a behavioral
addiction to novelty, says Dr. Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sci-
ences at UCLA.The brain craves immediate gratification, and the stimulation from each
digital connection releases a squirt of dopamine, activating the pleasure center, he ex-
plains. Even without the devices’ vibrations, lights or pings, students said they were dis-
tracted by constantly wondering whether friends had liked a Facebook post or responded
to a text message or email. Some even experienced “phantom vibration” when the phone
was actually still. Most surprising, says Rosen, was that kids who checked Facebook just
once during the 15-minute period studied also had lower overall grades. “There is a lot of
anxiety about what they are missing, what MTV has called 'fear of missing out' or
FOMO,” says Rosen, and that anxiety itself is distracting. Students who stayed on task
longer were better students than those who multitasked and spent more time on media.
WOULDN'T THE OPPOSITE BE TRUE FROM THE PRECEDING SEN-
“Children live in this world where the technology is never off,
their [smart]phone is never off and they even sleep with it.”
–continued from page 37
–continued on page 40
PARENTS vs.TECHNOLOGY
TIPS
1. Practice human interaction
2. Set study times for 15 mins.
without tech devices, gradually
increasing to 30 mins.
3. Check cellphone records for
texting during class
4. Demand passwords and spot
check social media
5.“Friend” child on facebook
6. Set up“device-free” times such
as dinner and after 10 pm
7. Build trust so that children and
parents can talk freely about
what is appropriate