Down the rabbit hole

National Institutes of Health: Average adolescents spend 8 hours per day on social networking sites (SNS). This study reveals that such use is associated with “mental health issues such as depressive symptoms, diminished self-esteem, and Internet addiction.”

University of Pittsburgh: Adolescents who compulsively accessed multiple SNS’s were more likely to have of high levels of anxiety and depression. “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technologies” presents evidence that validates this Pitt study. Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” demonstrates how chronic Internet overstimulation adversely affects brain neurophysiology, including the presentation of ADHD symptoms. (The CDC reports that six or more hours on SNS’s was associated with unhealthy diet and sleep deprivation.)

Internet use for many adolescents involves obsessive surfing of multiple platforms. Stanford: Such “‘multitasking’ is related to poor cognitive and mental health outcomes” and chronic adolescent “multitaskers” had diminished ability to maintain a cogent, linear thought. Digital media researcher Douglas Rushkoff states that the average adolescent checks a cellphone 160 times per day.

Social maturation can be impaired because SNS’s facilitate bullying, increased sexual risk behaviors (Washington University study), and narcissistic tendencies and can become a surrogate for real-time, face-to-face interactions. Retraction from these latter encounters into the often superficial SNS inhibits healthy social development and compulsive users are often, to use MIT’s Sherry Turkle’s words, “alone together” even when in the physical presence of others.

This evidence indicates an insidious public health issue, yet its ubiquitous, profitable, and many adults are submerged in similar behaviors.

Easier to simply medicate the afflicted?

John B. Hagney, teacher, Lewis & Clark High School

Spokane