Features writers Anna Brosnan and Nicole Le Marie were put to the test to see how well they would survive five days without different modern technologies...
Chronicle And Echo reporter Nicole Le Marie is giving up all social media websites for one week.
SAY the word addiction and one’s mind naturally turns to drugs like heroin, cannabis or alcohol.
But can addiction to technology also prove a problem in modern society?
Researchers at the University of Worcester were last week reported to have found that smartphones are so addictive that many users hear “phantom vibrations” because they are so eager to receive another message.
Nada Korac-Kakabadse, a professor of management and business research at the University of Northampton, believes technology addiction is something that employers and employees will be increasingly concerned about in the future.
She said: “We have done a number of studies over the last 10 years and a lot of people, when we started, were dismissive. Now neuroscience says that the brain can be rewired, so habits and behaviours can rewire your brain.
“People are quite aware technology can affect us. People can multi-task to a certain point but our concentration span can’t focus on any one thing properly. Each time an email pops up, it changes your focus so there is a cost in multi-tasking. People are more likely to make mistakes.”
She continued: “It is not all awful, certainly technology provides rich opportunities and people can access more information but over-use has negative consequences. People are only recognising that now as they like the excitement of a new email from friends and each time that happens it has an addictive affect like alcohol.
“We have that need to know what a friend is doing and what pictures are being posted. A lot of people have thousands of friends on Facebook but, in reality, have only a few.”
She added: “I think, just like we had people rebelling against fast food, the same is going to happen with technology and only then will people start changing and start educating employers and school children about how to use technology properly.”
Features writers Anna Brosnan and Nicole Le Marie were put to the test to see how well they would survive five days without different modern technologies...
Five days without social media and recreational internet use, by Nicole Le Marie
WHEN I am at home my laptop is rarely off, so I wasn’t under any misapprehension that I wouldn’t find giving up social media and recreational internet use difficult.
I will start off by confessing that I did fail to give up social media entirely.
While I have easily managed to stay away from Facebook for five days, avoiding Twitter, whilst at work, proved rather problematic.
I often use Twitter to get in touch with people and look for case studies for features.
Last week one of my features focused on women in Northampton who had run a Race for Life, and their inspiring stories.
Although I often put appeals for case studies in the paper, more and more I also rely on Twitter.
I did initially ask my colleagues to tweet for me, but when I noticed my Smartphone flashing Twitter messages, I became concerned that people were contacting me via Twitter rather than phoning; and they were.
Asking my colleagues to reply on my behalf seemed a bit laborious; so I gave up and did it myself.
Twitter may sometimes be filled with boring updates about what people had for their dinner, but it can also be an incredibly useful tool.
And while I absented from regular news bursts at home, it has become part of my working life.
Leaving behind Facebook was a lot easier.
The main thing I missed, was I have a habit of scrolling my Facebook feed when I am on hold, or playing telephone tennis as I try to find the relevant person to speak to in an organisation.
I am not a patient person and missed being able to use social media as a distraction.
It was at home that I appreciated this experiment. I do find that it is sometimes hard to forget the world around you and relax, and literally switching myself from social media, was quite pleasant.
Yes, I have missed finding out what some distant school colleague from 10 years ago did with their Saturday night, but I have stopped writing messages and spoken to friends on the phone a lot more this week.
The one thing I do think Facebook is good for is sharing pictures and events, and I did miss out on seeing pictures of a friend’s newborn and an event invite.
But overall sometimes I think it can be useful to stop getting continual updates about everyone else’s life and concentrate on your own.
Giving up using the internet at home entirely, was the hardest part of this experiment.
I pay bills through the internet, use internet banking and shop online. I even use the internet as a recipe book.
Giving it up for a week meant wasting time on automated phone systems, in queues and manually trawling through recipe books instead of just typing a key ingredient in and getting a list of options.
On the other hand not wasting time looking up stuff on Wikipedia, watching TV on iPlayer or 4od, listening to Spotify or reading online articles, freed up a lot more time.
Not content with the timing of any of the programmes on real-time TV, I have spent more time preparing for a half-marathon, I ambitiously signed-up for (which is probably stretching my natural ability a bit far).
I have been to the cinema mid-week (although I was annoyed I couldn’t Google the reviews when I got home or check a historical reference that was bothering me) and I have finished a book I had been trying to get through for ages.
In the last five days I have discovered internet and social media have become an intrinsic fabric of my daily life.
And yes, I probably am a bit of an addict, or at the very least incredibly reliant.
But I am unrepentant...I do think the benefits outweigh the cons.
Five days without TV or radio, by Anna Brosnan
I don’t watch much TV, at least that is what I always said.
But when faced with the prospect of giving it up for five days, I realised how completely untrue this was.
When I go home I have come to depend on TV to help me chill out after a manic day of interviewing and writing.
The kind of TV I watch can be whittled down to a simple - and quite embarrassing - list, comprising: the news, BBC Breakfast, Coronation Steet, Emmerdale, Eastenders, my assorted Bette Davis films and a huge array of regularly watched DVDs (mostly comedies) ranging from Miranda to the American series of The Office.
Then if I am not away at the weekend, there are certain TV rituals I obey, such as watching an entire Saturday morning of cookery programmes by James Martin and his ilk. I have recently expanded this to include Call The Midwife, on Sunday evenings, which is absolutely excellent and has the very funny and charismatic Miranda Hart in it too.
For the most part, the list veers away from anything too gritty and, just looking at it, I can see I watch TV to either inform or escape; two functions which were eradicated last Tuesday when I brutally cut myself off from TV and radio (which I usually listen to in the car).
And it was brutal.
On Tuesday morning, I was bereft without BBC Breakfast to give me a quick burst of news. Not least, I had to rely on the clock on the wall to know the time which, needless to say, I then forgot to look at and made my husband late for work, as we car share.
In the car I put on my Adele CD instead of the radio and again felt that I was cut off from human contact and had the disturbing sensation of being in a bubble uninterrupted by the outside world.
At work I tried to block out the radio which was on in the background and did a trawl of internet sites to try to make myself aware of what was happening in the world. But even in doing this I felt I was simply swapping one form of technology dependence with another. What did people do before any of it was invented?
The following evenings were quiet, to say the least. I found that I was spending more time cooking our evening meal than I used to, simply for something to do. The old Jamie Oliver cookbooks were dusted off and we probably ate better than we often do when I cook.
I had more actual conversations with Payat as we ate our meals at the table every day instead of falling foul to the temptation to sit in companionable silence in front of the TV.
Payat did not give up the TV habit and refused to renounce his obsession with BBC’s Stargazing LIVE, so I was banished to another room to pursue other activities like knitting, reading and playing the piano. I felt very much that I had reverted back to the pastimes of a Victorian lady. I’m surprised I didn’t start wearing bonnets.
The effect of having no TV or radio in my life was calming, but I did suffer thoughts that could only be put down to addictive side-effects.
I missed the fake impression of company that comes from having a radio on when alone in the car and I felt impatient to know the outcomes of what had happened in the various soap operas I watch, even though my sensible head knows it has no bearing on my life at all.
My brain seemed hungry for stimulation and life seemed far too quiet because I was used to all that noise brought in by technological media. But it also led me to wonder, what are we covering up with all this noise and why are we so frightened of the silence?
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