we love our screens they connect us in
unprecedented ways but are they leaving
us update addicted glass tapping junkies
in the process on a typical day the
average person will check their phone 85
times more than half of those uses will
come in short bursts lasting 30 seconds
or less in total will be chained to our
phones for five hours during the day
twice as long as we're likely to think
we're using them in the office it's
estimated that employees spend as much
as twenty-eight percent of their
workdays on social media and non-work
related tasks and it typically takes
twenty minutes to return to the original
task after an interruption
one of the reasons we keep reaching for
our phones is that when we get a text or
refresh a website it excites neurons in
an area of the midbrain which in turn
releases dopamine into the brains
pleasure centers a similar process
enables nicotine gambling and cocaine
addictions although in higher amounts
which is why it's hard to resist your
phone in the car
forty-nine percent of Americans say that
they text while behind the wheel
despite 46 states having laws that ban
it one in every four accidents involves
someone using a cell phone and nine
Americans are killed every day from
distracted driving
once device use begins to affect our
relationships and physical health it's
classified as Internet addiction this
American Psychological Association
recognized condition is estimated to
affect six percent of the global
population however one study of American
college students found the number could
be as high as twenty six point three
percent although innocuous sounding
Internet addiction may have very real
effects on the brain a study of internet
addicted video gamers revealed several
small regions in the subjects brains
actually shrunk from long-term excessive
video game play in some cases as much as
10 to 20 percent one of the affected
areas the left posterior limb of the
internal capsule is linked to cognitive
and executive functions this could
impair decision-making abilities
including the choice to log off and
return to the real world ah the real
world where we do things like go to the
park meet friends for dinner get drinks
on a date and check our phones
incessantly during all those activities