More technology addiction thoughts

December 13, 2024

At risk of repeating myself, I read a post on Ava’s blog, thoughts on online addiction that matches how view the framing of overuse of technology as an addiction. The most salient part of her post is where she talks about the need to build up replacement activities for the “bad” activity you are blocking.

I also think whether or not you view the activity as an addiction also has to do with how you use the computer. Some people I know do not use their computer unless it’s for work and only watch TV or spend time on their phone or tablet, so they are much less likely to describe their relationship with technology as an addiction compared to someone like me who uses my computer for both work and play.

In thinking about this topic, the biggest shift in my perception comes from my desire to blog more. In this sense it is difficult to tell if the amount of time I spend on my computer or phone has changed all too much. Yet by blogging I am changing my interactions from passive consumption to active contribution. This is not to say I think everyone should go out and start blogging but blogging and sharing what you find has a much more permanent effect than you might expect.

In order to be a good citizen on the internet, we have to share our work in a way that is open and accessible because you never know who may stumble into the information you have shared. By creating and sharing what we find, this frames our relationship with technology in a more positive sense than thinking of it as an addiction.

For example the other day I was trying to find an article by Carolyn Kizer in 1956 in The New Republic (PDF). I have been researching the Blue Moon Tavern in Seattle and she has this to say about the bar:

The surrounding social environment, with its American emphasis on home entertaining rather than café life, offers a bistro only such places as The Blue Moon Tavern, a grubby oasis just outside the University’s one-mile-limit Sahara. Here the juke-box roars, Audrey the waitress slaps down schooners of beer, and poets, pedants, painters and other assorted wild-life make overtures to each other. They tell me the men’s room walls bear quotations from Dante, in Italian, and a graffetto to the effect that “There is no God but Milton, and Arnold is his prophet.” “Arnold” is Arnold Stein, the Milton scholar, who also published poetry, and is one of the critics to whom Roethke listens with especial care.

By reading her article Poetry: School of the Pacific Northwest as it appears, instead of someone’s brief summary, you have a better sense of what people are talking about. I found it difficult to track down a date for when she published this article other than it was in 1956. At one point a stray excerpt in a Google search result surfaced with July 16, 1956 as the publication date. I had already loaded the microfilm and was prepared to flip all the way from January 1956, but this sped up my process.

Were the hours I spent in multiple internet searches and reading worth it? Could you call it an addiction? Yes, perhaps but these active engaging tasks feel much less addictive.

In another related post, Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes about 25 Reasons to Write Online and How to Start a Newsletter in 2025. Just as I don’t think everyone should write a blog neither should everyone start a newsletter. Not everyone is cut out for expressing themselves in this format. Even though her newsletter isn’t something I always read 100%, the fact she has sent out 250 editions means she is cultivating an active relationship with the computer. Even though the topic of her newsletter is productivity focused and may not appeal to everyone, writing on a regular basis feels relieving.

Even the other day when I was sitting in Zeitgeist Coffee with my computer open not sure where to go, I felt a bit anxious but I wanted sit there and do nothing. Leave my mind empty to wander and enjoy the sunset against the old buildings in Pioneer Square. Not every day will we find ourselves feeling so inspired and creative. It’s all too easy to blame computers, the internet, social media, or our phones for being addictive. But I think what determines whether or not we feel addicted to technology is how perceive our relationship to technology is, rather than the technology itself. It’s easy to have a mismatch between our expectations for ourselves and reality.

Yes do listen to the Grateful Dead song Dark Star on YouTube over and over again. It doesn’t really mean you have a YouTube addiction, but if you keep thinking you are addicted, then give in on occasion, does this really mean you have an addiction to YouTube? Sure you are breaking this promise to yourself and this isn’t healthy, but maybe YouTube is not really the root issue. Maybe it is something else? Whatever it is, it’s not the same for all of us.

To break free from this sense of addiction, you have to replace the activity with something positive. Ironically, blogging and writing has shifted me away from this doom loop into a positive feedback loop. I’m still on the computer, but it doesn’t feel so much like an addiction anymore.