Not an Addiction

You can stay on the Internet all day. The ubiquitous smartphone and tablet made it even more so. Of course, those two “culprits” also result in people playing games or watching videos all the time. Since the activities mentioned last have nothing to do with the Internet (except if you are streaming movies), there’s a different term for that too: screen addiction.

Except that both terms (Internet addiction and screen addiction) always felt so wrong to me. But I couldn’t put my finger on why, until I read this article by Alan Jacobs. Citing 4 kids who spend all day playing World of Warcraft, being on Facebook, watching porn, and (gasp) learning to program using their devices, he says:
“They're addicted to certain experiences that they are getting access to via their computers. That is not at all the same thing…Now, some might reply that this is a frivolous response, that such language is an easily-understood shorthand. But I would counter that it's a highly misleading shorthand, because it teaches us to conflate extremely different experiences, to place them under a single umbrella, which is exactly where they don't belong.”

The lines above were one of those key-that-opens-so-many-doors moment for me. I will cite just 2 instances to convey what I mean. None of us would say that reading a Sidney Sheldon novel is the same as reading Carl Sagan or a biography of Mandela. Or that watching National Geographic or Discovery all day is equivalent to watching saas-bahu serials or masala movies all day.

Just as the terms “book addiction” and “TV addiction” convey a negative meaning, so do the terms “Internet addiction” and “screen addiction”. And all four terms are equally wrong.

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