Social Epidemic Of Screen Addiction Essay

PAGES
1
WORDS
339
Cite

Reading Notes for Hari

Hari, Johann. Your Attention Didn't Collapse. It Was Stolen. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 Jan. 2022, www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/attention-span-focus-screens-apps-smartphones-social-media.

Johann Hari was a former columnist for the Independent, but his career failed when he was called out for lying and manipulating facts in order to advance his own journalistic status. He then wrote a book about drugs and addiction and has been writing for the Guardian since (Aitkenhead). The Guardian is a British daily newspaper with a strong web presence.

Haris main claim is that addiction is a problem for most people but especially young people attached to their screens and social media apps like YouTube and Snapchat. They are missing out on reality because of their screen addictions. To support this claim, Hari uses personal anecdotes (his experience going to Graceland with his nephew Adam), expert opinion (he travels to Portland to talk to Professor Joel Nigg). He also speaks to James Williams, former Google engineer, who says that the issue is a social problem and that to fix it society itself needs to become less attached to technology.

A key concept in the article is the social epidemic concept. It is used to explain the phenomenon of addiction to phones, screens, and technology in the same way obesity is a problem: it is not a medical epidemic but a social epidemici.e., a result of environmental factors that need to be changed to address the issue.

The strengths of this argument are that it does highlight the need to change the world in which we live. Getting rid of ones phone for a day or two might be a nice break, but inevitably we will be back on the screens. Changing the environment is more importantbut also more unlikely, which to me is the main weakness. It sounds like a good idea on paperbut if we cannot even change ourselves, how are we going to change society or the environment around us?

Works Cited

Aitkenhead, Decca. Interview: Johann Hari. The Guardian, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-interview-drugs-book-independent

Cite this Document:

"Social Epidemic Of Screen Addiction" (2023, January 26) Retrieved April 28, 2024, from
https://www.paperdue.com/essay/social-epidemic-screen-addiction-essay-2178794

"Social Epidemic Of Screen Addiction" 26 January 2023. Web.28 April. 2024. <
https://www.paperdue.com/essay/social-epidemic-screen-addiction-essay-2178794>

"Social Epidemic Of Screen Addiction", 26 January 2023, Accessed.28 April. 2024,
https://www.paperdue.com/essay/social-epidemic-screen-addiction-essay-2178794

Related Documents
Addiction Is a Disease
PAGES 5 WORDS 1708

Addiction as a Disease: Addiction is a term that has traditionally been used to refer to psychiatric syndrome that is caused by illicit drug use. Actually, addition is the only psychiatric condition whose symptoms are regarded as an illegal activity. In most cases, this term is described on the basis of drug use, which is the main focus of many research and treatment programs. Generally, drug addiction has significant negative effects

Addiction in Nursing Both alcohol and drug abuse are a serious issue plaguing the nursing profession. Drug abuse in nursing includes both illegal drugs and prescribed medications. Not only do they acquire these drugs from dealers on the streets, but also through diverting it from patient prescriptions. This paper will discuss the root causes of this serious problem. The statistics of the number of addicted nurses will be presented. Lastly, what

Addiction to Alcohol
PAGES 10 WORDS 3073

Addiction to Alcohol With alcohol addiction posing major health and social problems in the United States, and the family remaining the basic social unit, the effects of alcohol addiction by a family member on the functioning of that social unit is of paramount importance in understanding the degree to which alcohol addiction is disruptive to family life; understanding this may lead to better ways to mitigate the effects of addiction on

Taoism On the other hand, Taoism teaches that people should not "strive to serve society and honor people of worth." People should be uneducated, not honor others and should be protected from material desires, which means addiction would be acceptable because people should not be affected by others The belief that people should be uneducated is not applicable to American society. To get a good job in America, most people have to

Therefore, aftercare often concentrates on different ways to manage stress, deal with urges, develop healthy relationships, etc. One of the biggest issues with treating addictions is that the initial stages such as detoxification are typically successful; however, relapse rates tend to be high (McNeece & DiNitto, 2008). As mentioned above the number one reason for relapse and stress, but there are other factors that play into relapse. There has been

One researcher suggested that instead of seeking a strict operational definition, one should think of alcoholism as they do mountains and seasons: "you know these things when you see them" (Shaffer pp). The most common conceptual error made by clinicians, researchers, and social-policy makers is to think that addiction resides as a latent property of an object, such as a drug or game of chance (Shaffer pp). For example, conventional