Tech addict: When you just can't switch off
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Have you ever interrupted kesmek childbirth,coitus cinsel birleşme, a wedding or a graduation ceremony, a funeral cenaze töreni or a minute's silence to send a text? Is your ideal six-month sabbatical izindönemi from work an extended period playing World of Warcraft in a windowless bedroom?
If so, you could be the country's latest gadget junkie bağımlı, reared on years of laptop hogging and online high living.
"It's a very young field of research, but there is some evidence to suggest that girls who spend too much time on Facebook miss out atlamak on key developmental steps and could feel immature olgunlaşmamış. Extreme cases can put people's education and employment at risk. Then there are the physical aspects yön. You can have a poor diet, lose weight, not eat properly. If teenagers are pulling all-nighters they might turn to stimulants uyarıcı, like caffeine or taurine boğa, and there is evidence that can increase anxiety in the long-term."
Teenagers, necessarily, are a high-risk group, as are those who've had a bereavement kayıp (ölüm), separation or redundancy ihtiyaç fazlası oluş. But no one is free from its impact.
How to tell if you're hooked bağımlı
- Do you seek araştırmak seek refuge sığınak in the virtual sanal world at times of emotional turmoil hengame? Spending time gaming rather than addressing problems is a classic sign of addiction bağımlılık.
- Addicts will often give up on evening reading - and even their sex lives - in favour of the joys of social networking. Tweeting before bed and accessing Facebook the moment you wake is indicative (i.) gösteren of obsessive saplantılı compulsion baskı.
- If you find yourself paying more attention to your Blackberry than your dinner companion, you may have a problem. New research suggests that as technology addiction takes hold our ability to empathise diminishes zayıflatmak; azalmak.
- A genuine samimi feeling of panic when your phone loses its signal or runs out of battery may indicate the beginnings of a dependency bağımlılık, psychologists say.
- Deceiving kandırmak friends, family and yourself about how long you spend online is a clear sign of an embedded technology addiction that may need addressing.