Addiction in society? Let me count the ways…
I know it has been far too long since my last post, but I honestly have an excuse – I have had no time recently to blog. Well, this is not really true, because how we spend our time is based on how we prioritize what must get done. So the more correct answer is - I could have blogged, but other things in my life took precedence.
In the recently published book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher makes a case that life ultimately adds up to what you choose to pay attention to. This got me thinking about how addiction has evolved (and adapted) to our changing world, and the ways in which we are all more vulnerable to excessive (addictive) behaviors – or at least exposed to far more triggers or precursors of excessive behavior:
- Food: Not long ago I had the pleasure to hear Dr. Kelly Brownell, Director, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, speak about the link between food and addiction. In brief, his talk was shocking, sad, and made me really mad. He provided a very empirically-based overview of how the food industry, food marketers (guerrilla, viral, stealth), and chemistry explain a great deal of our current epidemic of obesity. Check out slide 71, where pop manufacturers used baby bottles to package soda – absolutely disgusting!
- Drugs: If the 60′s/70′s were about heroin/LSD/etc., the 80′s were about cocaine, the 90′s about methamphetamine, the drug-object of addiction for our current times is prescription drugs. Why? They are readily available, many believe the myth that they are safer than illicit drugs because they are prescribed by a health care professional, anyone can learn about them online, and we currently live in a culture that seeks quick fix solutions to problems.
- Sex: Advancements in multimedia technologies have been led by the porn industry. Today, anyone can act-out their fantasies in cyberspace through avatars in second life, or find their sexual cup of tea online. Sex also sells products today more than ever, and marketeers continue to up the ante in ads of all kinds. And a day does not go by that some celebrity ends up in the news for infidelity (David Letterman, Jude Law, Ethan Hawke, John Edwards, Hugh Grant, Bill Clinton – need I say more?) Is it all bad? The flip side of the coin argues that what we need in our every day lives is sexual intelligence.
- Reality Television: The evolution of reality television has resulted in many people spending inordinate amounts of time living in illusory worlds. When people lack the development capacities to initiate, form, and maintain healthy relationships, then relationships depicted in reality shows provide an easy out. We can get caught up in the lives of those we find interesting or are attracted too – their relationships, struggles, and triumphs – and then cheat ourselves of real relationships living only vicariously through those on television.
- Social Networking Websites: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other social networking sites have fueled a new generation of social interactions, but research into the depth of social networks today reveals a very sad conclusion: We are becoming more and more isolated in our everyday lives. In a well-designed general social survey comparing social networks in 1985 to those in 2004, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important life matters nearly tripled! Seems like isolation may be a trigger for wanting an escape…
- Trauma: I continue to be amazed at the degree to which news makers will go to grab the attention of an audience. Traumatic, horrific, terrifying events happen every day, but now they are brought right into our living room in graphic detail via YouTube, Internet news sites, and other multimedia channels. Sure 9/11 changed a lot, but stories about children being brutally attacked, tortured, locked away, thrown over bridges and left for dead, or kidnapped, raped and held captive for years – and that is just the tip of the iceberg – how are we to take-in these violent images and stories? How are we to process them? Make sense of them? Or have we just desensitized ourselves to such stories? And how does exposure to this type of media motivate our desire to escape into fantasy?
- Time: I began this post apologizing for not blogging because of a lack of time. Despite all the new time-saving gadgets I utilize, I still don’t seem able to keep up with the pace of our fast moving society. Fast food, twitter, blazing high-speed Internet, sound bite news, packed calendars, energy drinks, and did I mentioned residential treatment for addictions in under five days? In the book In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honore challenges our way of life in the age of speed. I like both the book and his TED talk because they help us understand how the pace of our society promotes our need for quick fixes, quick releases, and quick highs. Perhaps one solution to addiction is just to slow down life.
William James said “My experience is what I agree to attend to”, but it seems that we are increasingly living in a world where the choice of what to attend to is being made for us.
Do these electronic cigarettes really feel like the real thing? I watched a video at this website but don’t know what to think. Are there any real smokers out there that aren’t promoting a product that can tell me what you really think?
I really enjoyed this blog entry — so many points felt like they rang true in my own life. I will be the first to admit that I love watching raunchy reality television (Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant) you know name it, I’ve probably seen at least one episode of it. I’ve always seen it in the sense that the drama is unfolding in their lives so I’ll be able to escape the drama in my own life. However, this may not be as true as I’d like to believe as the drama may be filtering into my psyche.
As for social networking sites, I’ve found that the more I use them the more depressed (relatively speaking) I become in my own life. It seems like there is so much pressure for us to be social beings — to have tons of friends and do tons of fun things — and social networking sites are the places to publicize this. I find myself surfing the “facebook wave” and feeling like I’m not quite as social as I should be. Ironically, social networking sites make us more isolated, yet they try to promote unity.
Finally, I completely agree with the notion of time. We live in such a fast-paced society it’s hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t the internet or smart-phones. I’ve always been a fairly impatient person (I’m notoriously late to things because I hate to wait) and our society just feeds into my impatience. Just slowing down could be my saving grace and remedy to my tardiness and impatience.
I have long been a believer that our society today caters to over indulgence and is run off catering to excessive behaviors. At almost every point in our daily lives we almost have no choices as stated. I do agree “it seems that we are increasingly living in a world where the choice of what to attend to is being made for us”. On the other hand I also believe that we as “free” people living in a society no matter how tainted with “advertising” have the option to ignore excessive behaviors no matter how forced upon they may seem.
I too enjoyed this blog entry, as I can relate to much of what was written. I’ll be the first to admit that after a long day, the first thing that I want to do is come home and catch up with the reality television that is packed on my DVR. It serves as a perfect escape from what is going on in my own life. I wouldn’t say that I get caught up in the lives of those on screen instead of being invested in my own, but it certainly serves as a distraction. Though I suppose one could argue that even by spending time watching tv instead of engaging with people in my life, that I am (perhaps passively) cheating myself.
I definitely agree that social networking sites contribute to the lack of connectedness offline and perpetuate the importance of being an extrovert. There is such a high priority placed on being a sociable and outgoing person which can be perfectly illustrated with websites like Facebook and Twitter.
I also agree with the overexposure to trauma and have to wonder what the purpose is. I no longer watch the news as it is inundated with horrific stories – even commercials that show awful images of animal abuse are, in my opinion, horribly over the top and inappropriate.
This is a great article and one that really applies to our society these days. Right now I’m taking a Drug Education class and this term we’ve been talking about the effects all different kinds of drugs has on our society and the hold it has over the young people. I just finished the books Beautiful Boy and Tweaked by Nic Sheff and his father. Nic and his family dealt with his addiction for years. They did everything to help him get through it and finally he was able to get clean and stay that way. What I love about this article is that it has nothing to do with illegal drugs, but infact stuff that we as American’s do and deal with almost every single day. I have to laugh because I just realized I’m doing four out of the seven things listed above RIGHT NOW! Over the last hour or so, my boyfriend and I have been texting back and forth on whether we should go out to dinner or cook something, I’ve been watching the reality tv show Khloe and Lamar on E and now as I’m typing this, a murder mystery on 20/20 is playing in the background, and Facebook and Twitter both are open tabs on my computer. I’m actually a little embarrassed that just right now I’m doing so many of those things. We compartmentalize so many things in our lives and if you take a step back, you quickly realize none of that can actually be healthy. Our generation has the world at our fingertips, just look at the phones we carry! On an iphone you can be checking your facebook and twitter while surfing the internet and talking on the phone. It’s absolutely crazy! I guess the saying is true “too much of anything can be bad.”
Thanks for your honesty! We have become quite a crazy society and I worry about the future. Unless we are able to strike a balance with technology, deepen our commitment to healthy human relationships, and live in harmony with our environment, then I fear things will not be good for us. Recognizing you are engaged in the things you listed off is a great start, but equally important is what you decide to do going forward.
J
Wonderful article. Highlighting actions such as watching reality television or social networking is really an eye-opening way of looking deeper into addiction, past the common views of only seeing drugs, gambling, and sex as addictive. As a college student I can really relate to the idea of the addiction to social-networks. I do not know very many people who do not have at least one social networking site that they use regularly, including my parents. Most of my peers check their Facebook’s at least once a day, not excluding me either, for I have it open in another tab. I had a teacher once who described the need to go on social network sites as a way to get validation. She described it like “Oh, I have a comment, someone loves me.” Or “I have a friend request, someone loves me”. Obviously these thoughts would not (necessarily) be conscious thoughts, but I often feel that this has some truth to it. Perhaps this is where the addiction comes in. Some have over 1,000 Facebook friends but it is likely that they have not had one meaningful conversation with even a quarter of them. Why do we need to validate ourselves with friend counts, and number of comments posted to our pages? I know a girl who is twenty years old and will text Friend A while in the room with Friend B, and text Friend B while in the room with Friend A. All the while mostly ignoring the person she is in the room with at the time. Where is the connection when we cannot socialize with the people we spend time with, why do we need to hide behind our computers all the while only grazing the surface of what a conversation should really detail? I don’t want things to be this way, but how do we change it?
We need to motivate real, social connections. To do so, people must acquire the developmental capacities to connect. Unfortunately, technology is robbing people of much needed interpersonal interaction where such capacities are developed. One solution is we need to begin using technology in a new way….
J
It’s scary to think that today we are faced with the addiction for prescription drugs. This wasn’t the case in the 60s where people were doing the illicit drugs. I can see the reason behind why people are addicted to prescription drugs. People are working longer hours and are dealing with a lot more stress than they did twenty years ago. As a result some turn to prescription drugs to help them cope the initial problem. This is only a quick solution and doesn’t get to the root of the problem (i.e. marriage problems, loss of job, death in a family).