Addiction in the Aughts

By: Jordan Rowe

Over the course of the 2000s, the world has struggled to combat increasingly shorter attention spans and general lack of will brought on by new media. Point in fact…we’ve become addicted to new media technology. Whether it be in the form of social networking (Facebook or Twitter), online news, blogging (like what I’m doing right now), podcasts, or other new media technologies, we’ve been distracted beyond measure. Simple social courtesy has even gone out the window as people will check their Facebook status in a conference meeting or classroom. In some cases, I would argue the addiction to new media technology rivals that of cocaine or methamphetamine. Stop and think for a moment. Could you give up Facebook with the snap of your fingers? What about using a phone where you couldn’t text or go on the internet? Even worse, what if you had to wait until six o’clock each evening to get the day’s headlines?

So our culture is hooked on new media technology forever. People face peer pressure from friends and family to get a Facebook account or get LinkedIn (sounds a lot like a friend urging you to use a drug). I came to college without a Facebook account and was cast as a social outsider. I initially refused to buy into social networking because I was unsure of its safety. I also didn’t want to get on the site just because everyone else was doing it. But the peer pressure begins to weigh you down and you eventually succumb. New media technology is also readily available. Just about anyone can get a page on Myspace, start a blog, or an internet radio station. It’s impossible to step out the door and not be bombarded by new technology. If we tried to turn the page back, I’m not sure we could. Mass hysteria might break out if we suddenly decided the world needed to go back to old media institutions (basic TV, radio, and newspapers). Certainly, the world has made innovative steps with the aid of technology. But, I think it has also made our culture more dependent on new media in order to succeed. Just look at how upset you get when you lose cell phone reception or internet access (this is the 21st century right?). Also, the tendency to have our ears and eyes glued to new media has left us less human. Yes, I said less human. We were created to interact face-to-face with other human beings. New media has led to a fragmenting effect where we are more concerned with texting a person 100 miles away than talking to the person sitting next to us. This addiction to new media technology could lead to serious consequences down the road. When we are unable to deal with problems in the real world because of our divergent attention to the internet world, trouble is bound to come knocking on our door. I’m still listening for that knock…