I keep writing about the silliness known as “tech addiction.” I can’t help myself but I’m not going to seek help. I’m not going to seek help because somehow has to call BS on this nonsense. Now the Macalope comes galloping—or is it loping—to my aid with his own takedown. It’s the Macalope so of course his article is written from an Apple-centric point of view but what he says travels well.
He starts with a story in Wired of a picture from Apple’s latest WWDC in which a person is looking at his iPhone rather than following the events on stage. See? Tech addiction. It’s robbing us of our ability to concentrate and focus. The thing is the person is Rene Ritchie, the editor-in-chief of iMore and as he later tweeted, what he was doing was taking a picture. In other words, he was using his iPhone to do his job by taking a picture of the action. Some might say the very definition of focus and concentration.
That’s not an isolated example. The Macalope offers another story where the Twitter set lose their collective minds over a group of school children who appear to be ignoring a Rembrandt painting while they stare at their smartphones. Of course, it turns out that the students were doing research for a school project on the art.
As amusing as these stories are, they are examples of how the Tech Addiction Police go looking for trouble and keep finding it where none exists. As I pointed out in my Tech Addiction is Not Real post, even experts in addiction psychology don’t believe there is such a thing. Others though, those with something to sell, are pushing the meme and, for example, offering Apps to provide a “less distracting” home screen.
It’s no doubt true that not everyone pushing tech addiction has a financial motive but they should consider that, as the Macalope says, we keep using our smartphones because they’re useful. They’re how we catch up on the news, keep in touch with loved ones, listen to music, read books, and do research. Of course we use them a lot.