Friday, July 2, 2010

Addicted to text

July 02, 2010

Perhaps soon we will also have self-help groups for people addicted to cell phone use and texting

Much as technology has improved our lives, it has also fallen prey to the human conditions: it is responsible for a whole new slew of disorders, phobias and anxieties. An Australian university has found that teenagers are now suffering a variety of problems, ranging from textaphrenia, textiety, post-traumatic text disorder and repetitive thumb syndrome.

As humans, we are experts at over doing things. Whether pleasure or pain, we find new boundary. Why should the use of mobile phones and the short messaging service (SMS) be any different? If there is a syndrome or a disorder to be had, you can make a safe bet that someone somewhere will have it. The fear of spiders or open spaces or black cats is all so medieval now. Instead we can be afflicted by the weather, affected by power cables, discomposed by flashing television images and if there is nothing else to fall back on, become deeply annoyed by our fellow humans.

Still, it must be admitted that SMS or texting is a wonderful thing. It has taken the tedium out of unwanted phone calls, it allows you to be polite when you mean to be rude and blissfully, it has also allowed you to hide behind technology where you can pretend to be busy. Some people though are cowards - they end relationships whether romantic or professional by SMS. Others take it a bit further by inundating you with messages - take the recent sad case of the model Viveka Babjee who killed herself where the police have to trawl through thousands of texts in an attempt to apportion blame.

Perhaps soon we will also have self-help groups for people addicted to cell phone use and texting and 12 step programmes to cut addiction. Already television superstars Oprah Winfrey has started a US-wide campaign to stop people from texting while driving - quite sensible if you think of it, And whatever Oprah Winfrey starts in one continent is bound to take off in the rest of the world.

All we need now is for tech lovers to start groups to save cell phones from potential abuse and we will have come full circle. As for teenagers and their apparent overuse of cell phones, there can be solace in the fact that phones are less dangerous than drugs and, moreover, teenagers will soon become adults and then have to confront much more horrifying problems like work, the weather, commuting and spouses! And we already have established disorders and syndromes for all of them.

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