Argumentative essay: Does technology connect or disconnect us? Is Technology Making People Less Sociable? Wall Street Journal Debate centers on the effects of mobile technology and social media, online and off May 10, 2015 11:08 p.m. ET With the spread of mobile technology, it’s become much easier for more people to maintain constant contact with their social networks online. And a lot of people are taking advantage of that opportunity. One indication: A recent Pew Research survey of adults in the U.S. found that 71% use Facebook at least occasionally, and 45% of ​
Facebook​
users check the site several times a day. That sounds like people are becoming more sociable. But some people think the opposite is happening. The problem, they say, is that we spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real­life relationships. Too much chatter, too little real conversation. JOURNAL REPORT Others counter that online social networks supplement face­to­face sociability, they don’t replace it. These people argue that we can expand our social horizons online, deepening our connections to the world around us, and at the same time take advantage of technology to make our closest relationships even closer. Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, says technology is distracting us from our real­world relationships. Keith N. Hampton, who holds the Professorship in Communication and Public Policy at Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information, argues that technology is enriching those relationships and the rest of our social lives. YES: Connecting Virtually Isn’t Like Real­World Bonding By Larry Rosen So that I won’t be branded a Luddite, I will start by saying that I have embraced technology in my life and in my 40 years of teaching. I talk to parents about responsible technology use and educators about enhancing its classroom efficacy. As a research psychologist, I have studied the impact of technology for 30 years among 50,000 children, teens and adults in the U.S. and 24 other countries. In that time, three major game­changers have entered our world: portable computers, social communication and smartphones. The total effect has been to allow us to connect more with the people in our virtual world—but communicate less with those who are in our real world. Our real and virtual worlds certainly overlap, as many of our virtual friends are also our real friends. But the time and effort we put into our virtual worlds limit the time to connect and especially to communicate on a deeper level in our real world. With smartphone in hand, we face a constant barrage of alerts, notifications, vibrations and beeps warning us that something seemingly important has happened and we must pay attention. We tap out brief missives and believe that we are being sociable, but as psychologist Sherry Turkle has so aptly said, we are only getting “sips” of connection, not real communication. Worse, we don’t even need a beep or vibration to distract us anymore. In one study of more than 1,100 teens and adults, my fellow researchers and I found that the vast majority of smartphone users under 35 checked in with their electronic devices many times a day and mostly without receiving an external alert. Anxiety drives this behavior. As evidenced by a rash of phantom pocket vibrations, our constant need to check comes from anxiety about needing to know what is happening in our virtual worlds. In one study, we monitored anxiety levels of smartphone users when we wouldn’t let them use their phones, and found that the heavy smartphone users showed increased anxiety after only 10 minutes and that anxiety continued to increase across the hourlong study. Moderate users showed some anxiety, while light users showed none. If we are constantly checking in with our virtual worlds, this leaves little time for our real­world relationships. A second issue is the difference between connecting and communicating. While we may have hundreds of Facebook friends—people we never would have met otherwise, with whom we can share many new things—do they really provide the kind of human interaction that is so essential to our emotional health? Psychologists define social capital, or the benefit we derive from social interactions, in two ways: bonding and the more superficial bridging. Research shows that virtual­world friends provide mostly bridging social capital, while real­world friends provide bonding social capital. For instance, in one study we found that while empathy can be dispensed in the virtual world, it is only one­sixth as effective in making the recipient feel socially supported compared with empathy proffered in the real world. A hug feels six times more supportive than an emoji. We need to examine our technology use to ensure that it isn’t getting in the way of our being sociable and getting the emotional support we need from the people who are closest to us. We need to put our phones away in social settings and consider making phone calls when we want to contact people instead of a series of brief texts. We need to learn to check in less often and seek out face­to­face contact more often. Dr. Rosen is a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He can be reached at ​
[email protected]​
. ENLARGE NO: Relationships Are Being Enhanced, not Replaced By Keith N. Hampton Don’t believe the hype. New technologies, including cellphones, the Internet and Facebook, are not making us less social. Yes, some things have changed—but maybe not as much as you might think. Consider “what a strange practice it is…that a man should sit down to his breakfast table and, instead of conversing with his wife, and children, hold before his face a sort of screen on which is inscribed a world­wide gossip.” These words ring as true today as when they were written, in 1909. They were the observations of one of America’s first and most renowned sociologists, Charles Cooley, about how morning delivery of the newspaper was undermining the American family. Thank goodness the scourge of the newsman is in decline. We are now no more addicted to communication and ignore our relationships as a result than we did 100 years ago. In studies with my students and collaborators, we have found that Internet and cellphone users, and especially those who use social media, tend to have more diverse and a larger number of close relationships. What has changed is that communication technologies have made many of our relationships more persistent and pervasive. This, in turn, is transforming how we relate to those around us, in what are mostly positive ways. Social ties that we once would have abandoned as we left high school, changed jobs and moved from one neighborhood to another now persist online. Today, high­school friends stay with us on Facebook in a way that they wouldn’t have done in the past. The same is true for professional acquaintances, distant relatives and friends from all phases of our life. In our closest relationships, today’s technologies don’t replace in­person interaction, they supplement it. It is tempting to dismiss as trivial many messages exchanged online. But together, the small sips that come from the steady contact of social media can add up to a big gulp of information about the activities, interests and opinions of the people we connect with. They communicate mutual awareness and closeness along with information that we wouldn’t otherwise receive. We shouldn’t fear information overload as a result. My recent studies have found that even the highest users of email, mobile phones and social media tend not to report higher levels of stress. In fact, for some, especially women, the exchange of informal support and opportunities for social sharing online contribute to lower levels of stress. All that information also contributes to our awareness of the world around us. Social­media users are more likely to know people from many diverse backgrounds. Among real­life friends and acquaintances, topics that are traditionally taboo, including politics and religion, are suddenly visible online in the places people visit, the photos they share and the opinions they endorse. Of course, not all of this information is welcome or appreciated, or leads to better friendships—but it doesn’t isolate us. We all know of individual cases of technology use that might be problematic, such as that strange practice of some men, or women, sitting down to their breakfast and, instead of conversing with their spouse or children, holding before their faces an actual screen on which is inscribed a world­wide gossip. But, for the majority of people, most of the time, communication is not a psychological ailment. Technology does not come between us. For most, the persistent contact and pervasive awareness made possible by technology provide a wide range of benefits we have never enjoyed before. Dr. Hampton holds the Professorship in Communication and Public Policy at Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information. He can be reached at [email protected]​
. Source # Sherry Turkle says social networking is eroding our ability to live comfortably offline. By Michael Price June 2011, Vol 42, No. 6 People today are more connected to one another than ever before in human history, thanks to Internet­based social networking sites and text messaging. But they’re also more lonely and distant from one another in their unplugged lives, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology social psychologist Sherry Turkle, PhD. This is not only changing the way we interact online, it’s straining our personal relationships, as well. Turkle’s new book, “Alone Together” (Basic Books, 2011), explores the ways online social networks and texting culture are changing how people relate to society, their parents and friends. The book is based on meta­analyses of individual and family studies and her own interviews with 300 children and 150 adults. Turkle maintains that people who choose to devote large portions of their time to connecting online are more isolated than ever in their non­virtual lives, leading to emotional disconnection, mental fatigue and anxiety. The ​
Monitor​
spoke to Turkle about her research and what it means for the Facebook generation. How has social networking through technology changed society the most? The most dramatic change is our ability to be “elsewhere” at any point in time, to sidestep what is difficult, what is hard in a personal interaction and go to another place where it does not have to be dealt with. So, it can be as simple as what happens when 15­year­olds gather for a birthday party. As anyone who has ever been 15 knows, there is a moment at such events when everyone wants to leave. Things get awkward. It is, however, very important that everyone stay and learn to get along with each other. These days, however, when this difficult moment comes, each 15­year­old simply retreats onto Facebook. Whether or not they physically leave the birthday party, they have “left.” When teens tell me that they’d rather text than talk, they are expressing another aspect of the new psychological affordances of the new technology — the possibility of our hiding from each other. They say a phone call reveals too much, that actual conversations don’t give them enough control over what they want to say. Does social technology isolate people from the real world, or augment our personal relationships? Both. Some people do use social networks to keep up with real friendships, to keep them lively and up to date. There is, however, another trend in which people “friend” people they don’t know or where they are unsure of the nature of their connection. We Facebook­friend people who do not know their commitment to us and similarly, we are unsure of what commitment we have to them. They can, in fact, be more like “fans” than friends. But their presence can sustain us and distract us and make it less likely for us to look beyond them to other social encounters. They can provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship, without the demands of intimacy. How does that reduced intimacy cause problems in our relationships? We are tempted to give precedence to people we are not with over people we are with. People talk to me about their phones and laptops as the “place for hope” in their lives, the “place where sweetness comes from.” We text during dinner with our families. We text as we drive. We text when we are with our children in the playground. Children say they try to make eye contact with their parents and are frustrated because their parents are looking down at their smart phones when they come out of school or after school activities. Young men talk about how only a few years ago, their dads used to watch Sunday sports with them and during the station breaks or between plays, they used to chat. Now their fathers are too often checking their email during games. The young men I interview sometimes call it “the BlackBerry zone” when they speak of their fathers’ unavailability. For those who would object that it’s the same as reading a Sunday paper while you watch sports, it is not. We give another level of attentional commitment to our devices. What are some of the benefits of solitude and taking time off from technology? It’s a great psychological truth that if we don’t teach our children how to be alone, they will always be lonely. When they’re always connected, children, adolescents and adults become dependent on the presence of others for validation in the most basic ways. When people move from, “I have a feeling, I want to make a call” to “I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text,” something unfortunate happens to their relations with others. They start to need other people to feel validated and they cannot approach others as full, individual, differentiated people. Rather, other people are used, as what one might think of as part objects — spare parts to support a fragile self. In a recent New York Times article, the founder of an online dating site (www.datemyschool.com) summed up the problem of his generation by saying that, “People in the 21st century are alone. We have so many new ways of communicating, yet we are so alone.” For young people who’ve never really known a world without social technology, how can you stress the importance of preserving a non­networked life? My guarded optimism about the future comes from the young people I speak with who already complain about having to perform a character on social networks. Living on social networks means performing one’s profile, and indeed multiple profiles, almost all the time. Young people complain of performance anxiety. Between performance exhaustion and the sense that they have never had their parents’ full attention, young people are in fact nostalgic for something they have never had. One of the case studies in “Alone Together” that most moved me was the case of Sanjay, a 16­year­old whom I met for an interview. During the hour we met, Sanjay had put away his phone and laptop. After the interview was over, he took it out and he had over 100 new messages, most of them texts. He explained that some of these were from a girlfriend “in meltdown,” some of these were from a group of friends with whom he was starting a band. As he collected his technology in order to begin to respond to these communications, Sanjay was clearly overwhelmed. He said, not particularly to me but more to himself, as a comment on his situation, “How long am I going to have to do this?” As we ratchet up the volume and velocity of our communication, we begin to set up a pace that takes us away from each other. Do men and women use social networking technology differently? In my own research, I find that men are more likely to be confrontational on social networking sites and women more likely to “stalk” (obsessively check people’s status updates and learn about them) and less likely to bully or be confrontational. One gender element that did become apparent is that mothers are now breastfeeding and bottle­feeding their babies as they text. Of course, in feeding an infant, so much more is going on than giving nutrition to a baby. There is the emotional exchange on the most primitive level, the feeling of gratifying someone and being gratified in return. A mother made tense by text messages is going to be experienced as tense by the child. And that child is vulnerable to interpreting that tension as coming from within the relationship with the mother. This is something that needs to be watched very closely. It reminds me of something that has occurred to me often as I have done this research: Technology can make us forget important things we know about life. Do you have any strategies for getting away from technology and nurturing real­life relationships? I have some basic rules. I think of them as creating sacred spaces around certain activities. No technology at meals. I used to check email before my daughter came down to breakfast, but then I got into a “just let me finish this one last email before I make you breakfast” mode and she called me on it! So, no technology when I’m with my daughter or out with friends. When my colleagues bring their phones to dinner and place them on the table, I sometimes tease them about the unlikeliness of “epistemological emergencies.” The idea that we should put each other on pause as though we were machines in order to attend to those who are not present has become commonplace. It needs to be examined. I don’t think that is how we want to treat each other. Also, no technology when I’m taking time for myself in nature. I have a house on Cape Cod and I notice people walk the dunes with their eyes down, looking at their smart phones. I think it is important to teach the next generation the importance of walking in nature, and in the city, and focusing on those experiences. I am concerned about our losing touch with the realities of our physical surroundings. I am concerned about our losing touch with the kind of solitude that refreshes and restores. Find this article at: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/06/social­networking.aspx Source # Text or Talk: Is Technology Making You Lonely? by ​
Margie Warrell As social media reshapes how we connect, we have to rethink what we need to feel fulfilled in our relationships, and realize that no amount of tweets, texts or Facebook status updates can provide it. While social networking is a great tool, there’s a profound difference between an online social network and a real one. Despite the fact there will always be someone, somewhere awake to “like” our latest status update – however witty or banal it may be – when it comes to friends, quantity doesn’t equal quality. Recent studies have found that despite being more connected than ever, more people feel more alone than ever. Surprisingly, those who report feeling most alone, are those you’d expect it from least: young people under 35 who are the most prolific social networkers of all. Another recent study found that 48% of respondents only had one confidant compared to a similar study 25 years ago when people said they had about three people they could confide in. So as we have built expansive social networks online, the depth of our networks offline has decreased. So it seems that because technology makes it easier to stay in touch while keeping distance, more and more people find themselves feeling distant and never touching. Or at least not enough to avoid us feeling increasingly alone. As I wrote in ​
Find Your Courage​
, human beings crave intimacy. Neurobiologists have found we are wired for it. Yet genuine intimacy demands vulnerability and vulnerability requires courage. It requires that we lay down the masks we can so easily hide behind online, and reveal all of who we are with others – the good, the bad and the sometimes not so (photo­shopped) pretty. Social media allows us to control what we share. It appeals to our vulnerability and vanity. We can pick and choose which photos we share and craftily edit our words to ensure we convey the image we want others to see. Yet it also provides the illusion of friendship that, in real life, may be shallow, superficial and unable to stand the demands, and pressures genuine friendships entail. a Digital communication can never replace in person, face­to­face, contact in building relationships – personal and professional. As a study by Harvard Business Review found, team performance went up 50% when teams socialized more and limited email for more operational only issues. But whether loneliness leads people to the Internet, or the internet to loneliness, it seems that many of us turn to the internet to avoid simply being with ourselves. As Sherri Turkle author of ​
Alone Together​
wrote, until we learn how to be okay with solitude, we are not going to be able to connect deeply with others. Social networking provides a means of escaping confronting aspects of ourselves and our lives we wish were different, better, more glamorous and less mundane. It’s an all too convenient tool for avoiding sometimes harsh realities and playing pretend (to ourselves and others) with our life. Online websites promise avatars that will allow us to love our bodies, love our lives, and find the true romance we dream of. But at what cost to the real life (marriage, body, friendships) we have to face when we close our computer down? Even the most brilliant and mesmerizing avatars cannot compensate for what is missing in real life. Don’t get me wrong; online technology is not some “necessary evil.” Far from it. It’s a magnificent tool for staying in touch with people across miles, time zones and years. We’ve all witnessed it’s power in rallying people behind noble causes (think KONY 2012), overthrow governments (as we saw in the Arab Spring last year), enable people in isolated corners of the globe to plug into resources and information they could never otherwise access (think North Korea), and provide opportunity to conduct business more efficiently than ever before. But like all tools, we have to learn how to use it well, and not let it use us. We cannot become dependent on it to do things it simply cannot do – like fulfill our deep innate need for intimacy, genuine connection and real friendship. All needs which can only be fulfilled through sometimes­uncomfortable conversations, in which we share openly what is happening to us and engage authentically with what is going on for others. As we rely on technology to communicate more efficiently in an increasingly global world, we mustn’t lose tough with the physical community around us or forget that human element within any relationship can never be replaced by technology. The more we rely on technology in our lives the more mindful we must be to turn it off and spend time with people, without our gadgets beeping at us to return texts that really, aren’t worth our time to reply to. While it might be stating the obvious, if you want to connect with people more, you need to be in converse with people more – openly, authentically and with a ​
vulnerability ​
that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. 7 STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING A ​
REAL​
SOCIAL NETWORK: 1. Unplug: Turn off your computer, put down your iPhone, step away from your iPad, and take time to engage with people, in person, with face­to­face communication. A night at home with 500 of your FB friends can never compare with an evening out with five friends, or even one friend. If you can’t connect face­to­face at least switch off the computer and pick up the phone for a meaningful conversation, rather than a series of cryptic texts or tweets. Fifty text messages over a day can never compare with just five minutes of open, caring and honest conversation. 2. Become a better listener: Too often we talk to much and listen too little. Learn to listen well and be okay with yours and others stumbles. We can’t edit real conversation and we don’t want to. It’s when we hesitate, stumble on our words or simply find ourselves sitting in silence without any words that we reveal ourselves to others and connect most deeply. As I’ve said before we connect to others through our vulnerabilities, not through our brilliance. 3. Engage in your community: Get involved in your local community or neighborhood. Join the local tennis club, or volunteer to help clean up the local park or spend some helping at a local service organization. 4. Practice Conversation: If you are out of practice at meeting people take small steps. Make the most of all chances for social contact, whether it’s speaking to the local greengrocer or responding to a fellow bus passenger who strikes up a conversation. For some people, just making eye contact can be difficult. So it may be that you have to begin with just that. Is technology making us lonely? by Branwen Morgan It's meant to connect us, but is technology only making us feel more alone? Is there anything we can do about it? Published 03/11/2011 In this age of social networking, you'd wonder how anyone could ever feel lonely. But the more you use technology to communicate, the lonelier you are likely to be. That's according to a recent survey conducted by Relationships Australia, a community­based support services organization. "Forty two per cent of Australians who used an average of four methods of technology to communicate [such as email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter] were lonely compared with 11 per cent of people who used only one," says Sue Miller, a manager at Relationships Australia Queensland. The 2011 results, which come from polling 1204 people over the age of 18, also challenge the idea that elderly people are society's loneliest. The data reveal that people aged 25­34 were most likely to frequently feel lonely (27 per cent) and that young adults aged 18­24 are the second loneliest group; 19 per cent frequently feel lonely. For those over 70 years of age, the figure was 11 per cent. Miller says she was surprised by the results which also showed respondents who indicated they frequently felt lonely were more likely to use Facebook to communicate with friends, family and potential partners (54 per cent) than respondents who infrequently (39 per cent) and respondents who never (28 per cent) felt lonely. "What we don't know is which came first: was it that they felt lonely and they used technology as a means to lessen their loneliness; or are they using more social media and that is increasing their loneliness?" explains Miller. "We now want to look at that question in more detail." The online/offline balancing act There's no doubt that technology can bring positives to our relationships – just think how many people today meet their partners online. When the Relationships Australia survey asked respondents whether they believed social networking had a positive impact on relationships 54 per cent of those aged 18­24 said it did (although this figure decreased as the age of the respondents increased). But mixed with this positivity is a worry that virtual communication – whether it's via social networks or SMS – is no match for a face­to­face get­together. "The quality of online communication is impoverished in comparison with the physical, real world face­to­face communication," says Dr Catriona Morrison, an experimental psychologist at the University of Leeds in England who has studied the link between depression and internet addiction. "You often don't hear someone's voice and you don't see any body signals, which we know from traditional psychology are important." Morrison's observations are mirrored in the Relationships Australia survey, where respondents listed having less face­to­face contact and spending time on the computer at the expense of being with other people among the main ways social networking can harm relationships. Morrison says it's important to be aware of how much time you are spending online. "It's like any addictive behaviour ... where you have feelings of a loss of control, where you [are] going online for many more hours than you intend and you are replacing face­to­face relationships with online relationships," Morrison says. "That's where the problems occur." As to whether loneliness drives people to the internet or whether the internet and social media lends itself to behaviours that lead to loneliness, Morrison says that, in all likelihood, it's probably a bit of both. Only the lonely: how loneliness can affect our health Feeling lonely on occasion is not uncommon – some might say it's part and parcel of being human – so why should we be worried about it? Well, chronic loneliness can lead to an array of health problems that include anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse. It's also a risk factor for cancer and cardiovascular disease. While it has been known for many years that people who are socially­isolated have poorer immune systems than those who are 'connected,' only in the last few years has the biological mechanism that explains the link between loneliness and ill health been determined. This group of people also have increased levels of hormones, such as cortisol, a stress hormone. It now appears that these hormones alter gene expression in immune cells, which compromises the body's ability to fight infection and contain inflammation. Interestingly, physically being with others can lead to a release of the 'feel good' hormone oxytocin, which is an anti­inflammatory. The US authors of a study, published last year in ​
PLoS Medicine​
, say the negative effect of loneliness on people's wellbeing is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic and that it exceeds the effects of no exercise or obesity. The analysis, which was based on 148 independent studies that measured frequency of human interaction and tracked health outcomes for an average of seven and a half years, also found social connections – friends, family, neighbors or colleagues – improved the odds of survival by 50 per cent. And it's worth remembering that loneliness isn't the same as being alone. In the '70s, psychologist Robert Weiss penned a definition of loneliness that is still used today: Loneliness is a distressing mental state where an individual feels estranged from or rejected by peers and is starved for the emotional intimacy found in relationships and mutual activity. Combating loneliness For the vast majority of us, the internet can help us to function better in our increasingly global world – but Morrison says we just mustn't lose touch with the physical community around us, and the people in it. "While it's nice to be in touch with your cousin in England over Facebook, that can't replace a more intimate face­to­face relationship... you need to balance this with relationships within the community you are actually living in," she says. Whether you're an avid social networker or you prefer an old­fashioned face­to­face meeting with friends, all of us can feel lonely from time to time. UK mental health charity MIND has some advice: ● If you are out of practice at meeting people take small steps. Make the most of all chances for social contact, whether it's speaking to the local shopkeeper or responding to a fellow bus passenger who strikes up a conversation. ● Join a class or find an interest group. Getting to know new people can be part of the learning process in a new class. Whether you enjoy country walks or going to the cinema there's bound to be an interest group in your area where you can meet like­minded people. ● It may be necessary to seek professional help. Small group counselling sessions or one­on­one sessions with a counsellor may be useful. More info Needing the 'Net Some people become addicted to video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and other technology. SEATTLE, Washington​
(Achieve3000, October 28, 2009). About a year ago, Ben Alexander was spending nearly every waking moment playing the hugely popular online game World of Warcraft. As a result of his preoccupation with the game, the young man—who had always earned good grades in school and had dreamed of becoming a biologist—flunked out of college. Ben had an ​
addiction​
to a video game, and he was in desperate need of help. "At first it was a couple of hours a day," said Ben, now 19. "By midway through the first semester, I was playing 16 or 17 hours a day." Ben first sought help from a program that treated people suffering from substance addiction, but it wasn't a good fit. He then completed a 10­week outdoors­based program, but he felt he still had little control over his habit. Finally, Ben began searching for a facility that specialized in the treatment of gaming addiction. That's when he found the reSTART Internet Addiction Program at a newly opened center near Seattle, Washington. The program aims to treat pathological Internet use. It is designed specifically for people who are ​
obsessed​
with video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and other technology­based diversions. Similar treatment facilities are common in other countries, where this type of addiction is taken very seriously. But the Seattle facility is the first residential treatment center for Internet addiction in the United States. Patients live at the five­acre (two­hectare) center for the duration of the 45­day reSTART program. "We've been doing this for years on an outpatient basis," said reSTART co­founder Hilarie Cash.Cash was introduced to Internet addiction in 1994. She had a patient whose video game habit had led to the loss of his marriage and two jobs. "Up until now, we had no place to send them," Cash said of her patients who suffer from computer addiction. Ben, the new center's first patient, spends his days attending counseling and therapy sessions.When not in sessions, he stays busy doing household chores and working on the facility's grounds. He also exercises, goes on outings, and even bakes cookies. These activities are designed to help him sever his ties with the computer world and learn skills that are more useful in the real world. Cosette Dawna Rae is a therapist and co­founder of reSTART. According to Rae, Internet addicts miss out on real conversations and real human development. Their hygiene, their home, and their relationships often suffer, she said. Addicts also don't eat right, sleep properly, or get sufficient exercise. Some potential effects associated with Internet addiction are extremely serious. They range from job loss to car accidents for those who are continually texting while driving. Some people have died after playing video games for days without a break. These deaths generally stem from a blood clot associated with being inactive for extended periods of time. Addiction warning signs include being preoccupied with thoughts of the Internet. Others use the Internet longer than intended and spend increasing amounts of time online. Other warning signs include repeatedly making unsuccessful efforts to restrict Internet use. Addicts also neglect relationships, school, or work in order to spend time online. Headaches, severe pain in hands and wrists, and changes in weight are also warning signs. Some Internet addicts lie to conceal the extent of their Internet use. Some admit to using the Internet to escape problems or feelings of depression. Experts have speculated that Internet addiction is actually a symptom of other conditions. Therefore, they say, treatment should focus on the individual as a whole. Dr. Ronald Pies is a professor of ​
psychiatry​
at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. "From what we know," he said, "many so­called 'Internet addicts' are folks who have severe depression, anxiety disorders, or social [problems] that make it hard [to] deal face­to­face with other people. It may be that unless we treat their underlying problems, some new form of addiction will pop up down the line." Whether the reSTART program will prove effective in the long run remains to be seen. One foreseeable problem is that Internet technology is so widespread. Avoiding it can be nearly impossible in today's world. For now, however, Ben feels that the program has helped him. "I don't think I'll go back to World of Warcraft anytime soon," he said. The Associated Press contributed to this story. http://notimetothink.net/watch­trailer