Is Being a Tech Addict Bad?

Read this the other day and thought to myself ‘I totally relate to this!’ Possibly not so much addicted to the Internet but technology. I find it hard these days to not have technology around me but even more so we as a society are finding this harder. Ignoring the fact that to read this you’re using a computer of some description be it laptop or PC most people have a mobile phone. According to statistics 1.5 billion texts were sent each week in the UK last year which when divded by population (60,943,912) works out to 24 texts per person. I’d like to think I’m a light texter and generally call people if I want to say anything of length. My wife on the other hand texts quite a lot and considering she doesn’t use predictive text (as she finds it awkward) she’s pretty damn quick! How many times have you felt lost when your mobile is out of charge and you frantically try and find a way of charging and then receive a barrage of texts that you missed for the brief time you were incommunicado?

Some people would say the continued use of technology in our daily lives is a good thing. It makes life easier making what used to be tough tasks easier and less stressful. Communication like e-mail and SMS messaging has made the world a smaller place allowing for news and information to be spread around the world with alarming ease. On the flip side however you only need to google ‘texting thumb’ to read about peoples issues from excessive texting. Who can forget scare stories of mobile phones causing headaches and the paranoia surrounding long term damage caused by mobile phone use. There’s a post a made back in Feburary about a girl developing Playstation Palmer Hidradentis and I’m sure there’s a plethora of other technology based ailments to join the classic RSI injuries.

So is technology bad for  you? Like any addicition it only is if done to excess. I routinely have evenings away from my Mac and just chill with a good movie. When I’m holiday I like to be out and about and only use my laptop for blogging that days events, browse my pictures and maybe, depending on net access, send an e-mail. I can quite happily go incommunicado for a weekend and not come out the other side craving a text or sending an e-mail. I do know of people who panic if they have no access to e-mail and plan their holiday around the availability of mobile phone coverage. To those people I’d say slow down, un-plug and check out what you’re missing. The world won’t end if you don’t get your daily dose of spam e-mail.