Addiction and Technology

Addiction and Technology

“Tech platforms make billions of dollars keeping us clicking, scrolling, and sharing. Just like a tree is worth more as lumber and a whale is worth more dead than alive—in the attention extraction economy a human is worth more when we are depressed, outraged, polarized, and addicted.”

— from the Center for Humane Technology website

The technological revolution has made it almost impossible to separate how we conduct our social lives, business, health care, and education from the technology that allows us to do so. With vast information flowing to and from our fingertips, the way people interact with the world has fundamentally changed. It has also forever altered the way that scientists study human behavior and the brain.

Possibly the least recognized addiction today is to smartphones and social media apps. The internet is designed for addiction  We get the same doses of dopamine and adrenaline to getting likes, responding to posts, bingeing on videos.

Combined with video games, online gambling and betting, dating and sex “hookup” apps, and pornography, often with addictive substances, it is a toxic cocktail!

But on the other hand, technology does not need to be addictive or harmful. Some technologies can support us in Recovery, to help us meditate and ground in our bodies and in our true selves, to give us biological and neurological feedback with what is happening in our bodies and brains, and some to help stimulate us to change.

At Vital Puma Integral Recovery, we at the cutting edge of freeing us from technologies that trap us, and using technologies that support us. Call for a consultation!