Las tecnologia IT

Why are ICTs so addictive?

In the years 2003 some trade statistics stated that if you logged into your e mail more than four times a day you were already hooked and addicted. Since IM Instant Messaging started as a fad among the young more than a decade ago, young people seem to be connected all the time (24/7) to their social networks, examples: Facebook, Twetter or the like. As of November 2009, Facebook credits itself some 350 million users, most of them teens. Tweeter credits its consumers to some 30 million users. But teens also log into their mobile phones and used them to send short messages all the time, all over. Microsoft Live credits to have 800 million people as registered users.

Socializing in a virtual fashion

Profound reasons have to do with our socializing habits. We are deeply social and drawn together. Nevertheless, virtual or internet relations are not the same, although they seem to. What makes them so appealing and addictive for your people? They provide 1) instant gratification: you push or press a button and there is a response due to instant feedback; they are very interactive. That is not the real stuff of human face-to-face relations. If you push people around at the very least they will come back to you aggressively.

Play it safe: don’t zap

When we meet people there is a delay, some surprise and people—are not yet—push button. Some of our expectations or anticipated future might not happen. With ICT it does happen. When we get frustrated usually we react in one of three forms: get anxious, get angry or get sad. With ICT we usually are very happy on our own. We cannot yet “zap” people out of our lives. So, another way is 2) when using ICT if we get “tired” bored or the like, we “zap”, change channel, site, conversation or drop the whole thing. If we do this to people we are—at the very least—very uneducated and we risk retaliation of been rude for our bad manners. Therefore ICT are some sort of “safe-ground” People are much more hazardous and unpredictable.

Finally, 3) you can buy ICT gadgets, change model, and drop the widget, phone, Pod or what have you as obsolete. If you do that with people, you again risk retaliation, we can get into trouble. We seem to be getting into this trouble because we are so accustomed to treat people as machines and machines as people.

My conclusion is that ICT are a safe-ground for frustration and clever way but lousy to get increasingly isolated from the pains of life.

Real People

Real people are much more unpredictable, perhaps more rewarding in the end. But there is a long way in how relationships develop. There are ups and downs, turns and dead ends, fun and sorrow; just life. You don’t get that with simulated virtual worlds; even the best computer games are very predictable. Young people don’t seem to like to wait, or get frustrated easily, nor deal with it in a proper way. Press a button, zap, get away or whatever.

Gustavo Jimenez Lagos

November 2009.