Cell Phone Addiction?

Is anything a tad too excessive? I'm going to take that as a rhetorical question.

Listen in this case im just going to say the classic go to line....Do what the 99% aren't doing.

Morior Invictus, Aut Invenium Viat Aut Facium

 

If you look at the big picture and consider how prevalent it is, and how socially acceptable it is, then you may get a clearer picture but at the same time see something disturbing that you cannot "unsee." Generally speaking, it is that we are in a time when many addictive and compulsive behaviors are considered acceptable or at best not thought of as a serious thing.

By way of contrast and comparison, people see there's such a thing as alcoholism for example, there are organized approaches to addressing it including treatment programs and things like AA, but on the other hand things like PMO may not even be taken seriously - and it's not hard to imagine what the average population will think of tech and media use in general when there isn't necessarily something heavy like porn involved.

Not to focus on the negative but just in terms of seeing clearly there's one other point that should be mentioned: Even amongst the people who do recognize it as a problem many don't really know what to do about it, or do so in an effective way, or bother to put forth much of an effort to do something.

By the way, even the fairly well established addiction recovery groups have really dwindled, or they are just all meeting online. (hmm.. what were you saying about phone use?) So this question of how effective people are even when they have the intention to deal with it is reflected in the sheer number and size of these groups at this point. Of course many are focused on a particular addictive behavior and generally they don't want to talk about other things, and even a program that specifically deals with tech use are forced to use tech because people serious enough (which may still be largely a spectator perspective) to participate are way too spread out for there to be many face to face in person groups.

We should just face the fact that we are NOT in a good place when it comes to any kind of addiction recovery. There may be bubbles here and there, but generally speaking across the board it has essentially been seriously eroded, and from what I can tell people are not necessarily stepping up to be of service and have a presence to offer that support, and those getting it aren't necessarily all that motivated. This is a very precarious state of affairs.

 

well said and well reasoned everyone ^