Posted on 03/09/2010 7:20:21 AM PST by mattstat
Addiction is a strong word. It means, as the authors of the study are content to allow us to infer, an abnormal craving or desire, even to the point of pathology. Drunks and druggies are addicts. Obsession is a close cousin to addiction.
It’s possible to be clever about this. We are all “addicted” to food, air, water. And the same with sleep, talking, and so forth. These are “healthy” addictions. But only an academic would use that word to describe normal and necessary behaviors. The rest of us take it to mean something nasty and undesirable.
Especially if we hear that word used in a “scientific study” on behavior.
Professor Tanya Luhrmann—a Stanford anthropology professor whose early work looked into modern-day witchcraft, and who wrote what appears to be a useful book contrasting talk versus chemical therapies in psychiatry—decided to investigate “addiction” to iPhones.
Since Luhrmann has expertise in psychiatry, it is strange she would use such a strong word to describe how people use their cell phones. But she did: she directed a team which conducted a survey designed to diagnose the intensity of iPhone use.
And like many professors, Luhrmann used a ready sampling method: her students. How many? 200! Yes, only two hundred. From these 200, she, like a legion of academics before her, and host still to come, extrapolated to the rest of us.
According to a Live Science report on the study,...
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
My Iphone is usually out of juice by noon and needs to be recharged! But I've decided to get this under control! I will only turn it on when I'm away from the house!
There are MANY reasons to use an iPhone
It can be used as
a phone
a gameboard
a weather radio
a news channel
a web browser on a computer
an address book
an answering machine
a beeper
a dictionary
a photo album
a book (if you have Kindle)
a stereo
a record rack
an alarm clock
a notepad
etc etc etc etc etc etc
coaster?
I forgot... I use my iPhone as a video camera and a still camera.
LOL!
Maybe some day, when it dies.
My daughter's first iPhone was deliberately damaged by someone.
She bought a new iPhone.
My husband spent $100 to have her old one fixed and he now uses it as the equivalent of an iPod Touch (which costs $200), to show videos in his classroom.
He is very happy that he doesn't have to depend on the school's equipment, which often breaks down.
Amazingly, yes... there's an "iCoaster" app.
87% of statistics are inaccurate.
I love the grocery shopping app on my iPhone.
It used to be, that when I dropped into a grocery store on the spur of the moment, I would have a hard time remembering which staples I would soon need.
Now I (always) have my iPhone with me, to remind me. I'm even using one of the "grocery lists" to keep track of items I wish to buy if I happen to come across them at a low enough price.
Having the phone helps "absent-minded-me" make life better for me and for my family.
I also have some real estate apps (we're looking for a home) and some craft store apps on my phone. I can look at crochet patterns to get an estimate of how much yarn to buy, when I come across yarn that is really attractive.
Lets not forget, GPS.
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