The Shrine

Ok, seriously, if you're so fucking addicted to your technology that not only can you not stay away from it for 24 hours, you start feeling your phone vibrating even when it's not, you not some serious intervention where someone who has a life goes out and shows you what that word really means

http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/20 ... dents.html

I wouldn't say 24 hours, but if I didn't have technology for a week, I would go insane. What the fuck am I supposed to do without a phone or PC? Hike in the woods? Fuck that.

Fine for a day and I've been feeling phantom vibrations where I keep my phone since the technology was released. I could go without my phone fucking forever... PC on the other hand..

SineSwiper wrote:I wouldn't say 24 hours, but if I didn't have technology for a week, I would go insane. What the fuck am I supposed to do without a phone or PC? Hike in the woods? Fuck that.

Well, we went camping in Algonquin Park for 5 days and no one noticed there was no technology. In fact, we had a great time and no one 'craved' it. And every year when we car camp for 2 days, the devices hardly even get used. It's really no big deal. We also limit the kids to 2 hours of TV a day so we spend quite a bit of time in our family room or kitchen where we don't have a TV with them.

Do I want to do it? No. I luvs my comp, TV, and game systems and they're a big part of how I spend my free time. But I don't start feeling phantom limbs or start going insane without them. That's what I meant with the "get a life" comment. That's crazy addiction and should be alarm bells for anyone if they start feeling that way. Sad part is, I'm willing to be greater than 50% of people under 30 would feel that way.

When Katrina hit, I grabbed clothes....and I grabbed my big ass desktop computer, the few surviving things!

Another hurricane hit like 2 years later in B. Rouge that knocked out the power for like a week, so I fled to New Orleans and sat in a Hotel after the 2nd day of no electricity.

Now granted in the 2nd scenario, I wasn't really missing technology, I was just fucking sweating to death in a hot house in the Summer with no AC, but I certainly did feel at ease in my hotel room using that hotel internet. ^_^

I've felt phantom vibrations ever since I started carrying around a phone. It has nothing to do with overuse - I don't get many calls or texts, literally less than five a week - it's just that now my brain is "looking" for signals from the middle of my left thigh. Normal twitches and such that it would normally filter out as noise now make it through as signal.

Kupek wrote:I've felt phantom vibrations ever since I started carrying around a phone. It has nothing to do with overuse - I don't get many calls or texts, literally less than five a week - it's just that now my brain is "looking" for signals from the middle of my left thigh. Normal twitches and such that it would normally filter out as noise now make it through as signal.

Kup, can you tell me the source of that textbook definition of addiction? I'd like to use it in the future when people tell me they're not addicts

You're seriously trying to tell me that I'm a phone addict? I sometimes go a full week never making or receiving a phone call - and often that's just because I didn't have the time to call my parents that week. My "recent calls" list sometimes goes back six months.

And, by the way, the textbook definition of an addict requires that the addiction negatively impacts the person's life. Otherwise, it's just called a dependence.

I get the phantom vibrations from time to time, too. I'm just used to having my phone in my pocket so, like Kupek said, if I feel a twitch or some other kind of vibration I immediately assume it was the phone. It doesn't happen a lot. Heck, at work, I'll often think that I see IM windows blinking in the task bar when it's just glare off the monitor. I'm usually sitting there expecting the IMs to appear so when my brain notices anything it goes there first. It's not that I'm addicted.

I've left my phone home before by accident and you know what I did? I kept driving to work (or maybe was already there) and I was fine. Got home most of those times and didn't even have a missed call or text. haha

Kupek wrote:And, by the way, the textbook definition of an addict requires that the addiction negatively impacts the person's life. Otherwise, it's just called a dependence.

Addiction vs dependence = Potato vs Potatoe. Same shit, different pile (I'm talking realistically, not by a pure textbook definition). One is just a more severe version of the other, particularly when you apply it to technological dependence. And it did negatively affect your life. You were sensing things that weren't there, making you think about it and occasionally reacting to nothing. How is that positive?

Kup, you seriously don't think that feeling the phone vibrate when it's not there signifies at least a small problem? I sometimes don't play games for a week but I don't feel my fingers phantomally pressing down buttons even though there's no controller there.

Zeus wrote:Kup, you seriously don't think that feeling the phone vibrate when it's not there signifies at least a small problem? I sometimes don't play games for a week but I don't feel my fingers phantomally pressing down buttons even though there's no controller there.

Nope, not at all. It's easy to explain, as I did, as my brain registering a false positive on random stimuli I feel in my thigh around where my phone rests. I've heard others report a similar thing. I also have no psychological dependence on my phone, evidenced by how infrequently I use it.

We're constantly subjected to lots of stimuli that our brains passively filter out - think about how much noise is present, even when it's "quiet." False positives happen with other senses, such as thinking someone spoke to you when nothing was said, or thinking you saw something then realizing you didn't upon closer inspection. The difference between receiving a phone call and playing a videogame is that of deliberate action. We receive phone calls and texts as random events, so we have to look for them - which requires filtering out a signal from the noise. But you only press a button on a controller as the result of a deliberate choice you made; you want to move left, so you press the left button.

The standard for "negatively affecting one's life" is much, much higher than what you think it is. We're talking on the level of personal relationships and one's ability to maintain a job.

While I'm not really in this boat, I get how people could freak out without their phone. It's like being connected (even though it's basically an illusion) to everything and then not having it around is isolating. A lot of people have trouble with that feeling. People tend to be social creatures and feeling connected to people, even through technology, is a necessary evil in terms of not going bananas.

I don't at all get you harping on phantom vibrations being such an issue. It's a state of readiness completely comparable to possibly hearing a bump in the night that wasn't there and still looking through your residence for an intruder.

Kupek wrote:The standard for "negatively affecting one's life" is much, much higher than what you think it is. We're talking on the level of personal relationships and one's ability to maintain a job.

That's the extreme version of it. Not all people have the devices negatively affect their lives in an extreme manner just like not all dope users are vegetables

Zeus wrote:You were sensing things that weren't there, making you think about it and occasionally reacting to nothing. How is that positive?

How is it negative? I fail to see how it is either a bad thing or a good thing. It's....well, it's nothing.

Lox wrote:

Zeus wrote:You were sensing things that weren't there, making you think about it and occasionally reacting to nothing. How is that positive?

How is it negative? I fail to see how it is either a bad thing or a good thing. It's....well, it's nothing.

I don't know about you, but if any of my five senses are stimulated without cause on a regular basis, I consider it to be an issue

It's a tingling feeling. Not something to harp on.

Shrinweck wrote:It's a tingling feeling. Not something to harp on.

The severity, no. The reasons, yes

Please. I gave an explanation for what I think is happening, and it is harmless.

Kupek wrote:Please. I gave an explanation for what I think is happening, and it is harmless.

Fair enough