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The world Unplugged

I cannot imagine how life can be without using the media. Uganda
Media is not just a convenience, it is literally a part of my life. USA
No matter where they live, students no longer search for news; the news finds them. They inhale, almost
unconsciously, the news that is served up on the sidebar of their email account, that is on friends' Facebook walls,
that comes through on Twitter and via chat.

College students around the world are strikingly similar in how they use media and how addicted they are to it,
according to a new global study of university students by the University Maryland International Center for Media &
the Public Agenda (ICMPA) in partnership with the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change.
This new study asked close to 1,000 students in ten countries on five continents from Chile to China, Lebanon to the
USA, Uganda to the United Kingdom to abstain from using all media for a full day. After their 24 hours of abstinence,
the students were then asked to report their successes and admit to any failures. In aggregate, the students from a dozen
universities wrote close to half a million words or about the same number of words as Leo Tolstoys War and Peace.
Take a look at what these university students from the United States, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East,
Europe and Asia had to say about their struggles to go 24 hours without media. See the top fifteen highlights of the
study below, and browse inside for more details.

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Here are the top 15 surprising facts from the study:

Students addiction to media may not be clinically diagnosed, but the cravings sure seem real as does the
anxiety and the depression.

A clear majority in every country admitted outright failure of their efforts to go unplugged.

Students around the world reported that media are integral to their personal identities. Said a student from
Mexico: It was an unpleasant surprise to realize that I am in a state of constant distraction, as if my real life and
my virtual life were coexisting in different planes, but in equal time. Going without media, therefore, meant that
the students not only had to confront their media habits, but their sense of self. Who were they, if they werent
plugged in? As a student from China wrote, I was unable to describe the feelings without media, just like
something important was drawn out from my life. (Click here for more on students confused sense of self.)

Students around the world reported that being tethered to digital technology 24/7 is not just a habit, it is
essential to the way they construct and manage their friendships and social lives.

The failure rate didnt appear to have anything to do with the relative affluence of the country, or
students personal access to a range of devices and technologies. What the reports documented was how essential
AND pervasive digital technologies have become both for students individually and for their larger societies. I
didnt use my cell phone all night. It was a difficult day a horrible day, said a student from Chile. After this, I
CANT LIVE WITHOUT MEDIA! I need my social webs, my cell phone, my Mac, my mp3 always! Students did
distinguish, however, between voluntary failure in moments of weakness or because of their need to use media for
work, and inadvertent lapses because of medias omnipresence in their societies. (Click here for more on the
failure rate, and here for more on the students inability to avoid media.)

Students reported that media especially their mobile phones have literally become an extension of
themselves. Going without media, therefore, made it seem like they had lost part of themselves.

Students around the world repeatedly used the term addiction to speak about their dependence on media.
Media is my drug; without it I was lost, said one student from the UK. I am an addict. How could I survive 24
hours without it? Sharing analogies and metaphors made explicit the depths of their distress and likened their
reactions to feelings of a drug withdrawal. As a student from the USA noted:I was itching, like a crackhead,
because I could not use my phone. A student from Argentina observed: Sometimes I felt dead, and a student
from Slovakia simply noted: I felt sad, lonely and depressed. (Click here for more on addiction, here for more
on depression, and here to see a poster of statements by students from around the world.)

Students reported that how they use media shapes how others think of them and how they think about
themselves. The leading social media site across all five continents in this study? Facebook. Facebook is growing
in some countries by almost one percent a week; everyone is on Facebook. The consequences of that are twofold: Increasingly no young person who wants a social life can afford NOT to be active on the site, and being
active on the site means living ones life on the site. It was amazing to me though how easily programmed my
fingers were to instantly start typing f-a-c-e in the search bar. Its now muscle memory, or instinctual, to log
into Facebook as the first step of Internet browsing, admitted one USA-based student. There is no doubt that
Facebook is really high profile in our daily life, said a student from Hong Kong. Everybody uses it to contact
other persons, also we use it to pay attention to others. And a student from mainland China wrote:I love to visit
social networking sites such as Facebook or some websites like that, to see what something new with my
friends, what theyre saying, what theyre doing, what theyre thinking, or even to see some of their new pics.
(Click here for more about students use of Facebook.)

Students construct different brand identities for themselves by using different communication tools to
reach different types of people.

This savvy generation of digital natives can rattle off an arms-length list of communication platforms they
use simultaneously but in different ways: They call their mothers, they text and Skype Chat close friends, they

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Facebook with their social groups, they email their professors and employers. Students consider and sort through
all these permutations automatically, but the implications are real for how they construct their personas and social
networks via Facebook, Twitter, Skype, QQ, RenRen, Weibo, Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, BBM, etc.,
etc Social media are not just ways for students to communicate they shape how others think of them and how
they think about themselves. (Click here for more about students texting and use of SMS technologies.)
For many students, going without media for 24 hours ripped back the curtain on their hidden loneliness.

Many students, from all continents, literally couldnt imagine how to fill up their empty hours without
media.

It became clear in the hundreds of thousands of words the students wrote, that mobile phones are at the
literal center of students lives. Not only are they the main way students in this study across all five continents
communicate with their friends and family, phones are the main way in which students manage their lives. Wrote
a student from Argentina: I have a Blackberry phone that rings too many times a day not just for phone calls
or SMS but also for my two email accounts, Facebook and Twitter. Students also noted that their phones offer
connection and comfort if cartoonist Charles Schultz had drawn the character Linus today, he would be carrying
a mobile phone rather a blanket. As one US-based student wrote, My phone is my only source of comfort. And
as a Hong-Kong-based student simply observed to defend her difficulty parting with her phone: I am a person
with a great need of security. (Click here for more on students use of mobile phones.)

What is news? To students, news means anything that just happened worldwide events AND friends
everyday thoughts.

As a result, students from every country noted how desperately bored they were when they went
unplugged. I literally didnt know what to do with myself, said one student from the UK. Going down to the
kitchen to pointlessly look in the cupboards became a regular routine, as did getting a drink. Particularly
noteworthy was the short attention spans of the students how quickly they became bored and lost interest in the
alternative activities they did try. Some students became bored within a few hours; others in even less time than
that. Said one student from China: After 15 minutes without using media, my sole feeling about this can be
expressed in one word: boring. (Click here for more about how students sense of boredom.)
Mobile phones function both as this generations Swiss Army knife AND its security blanket.

When I couldnt communicate with my friends by mobile phone, reported a student from China, I felt
so lonely as if I was in a small cage on an island. Students were blind-sided by how much their 24/7 access to
media had come to dominate their relationships. We live too quickly, said a student in Slovakia. We call our
friends or chat with them when we need them that is the way we have gotten used to relationships. And the
problems for some students went beyond loneliness. Some came to recognize that virtual connections had been
substituting for real ones their relationship to media was one of the closest friendships they had. Wrote a
student from Chile: I felt lonely without multimedia. I arrived at the conclusion that media is a great
companion. (Click here for more on what students said about their feelings of isolation.)

Because Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and their counterparts are increasingly the way students reported
getting their news and information, students were cavalier about any need for traditional news outlets, and in fact
very few students mentioned any legacy or online news organization by name. Students wanted news, yes, but
the term was blurred in their minds, as the same social network platforms that carry their personal news, also are
the ways in which students get the bulk of their daily hard news, too. Rhetorically speaking at least, most
students around the world didnt discriminate between news that The New York Times, the BBC or Al Jazeera
might cover, and news that might only appear in a friends tweet or Facebook status update. (Click here for more
on what students said about news.)
We no longer search for news, the news finds us.

140 characters of news is all I need.

Students reported that TV is a favorite way to relax without thinking too much; it provides familiar
entertainment, and quite simply, it is another presence in the house and white noise as they go to sleep. While a
few students spoke of favorite shows, almost none spoke about destination TV: TV shows that students made an
effort to watch religiously. Students most commonly mentioned finding something to watch which could be
sports, popular shows, or classic programs when they wanted to relax. Other students noted that TV was most
often a group activity; they would only watch the TV when others were. Those students reported that for
themselves they could take TV or leave it, but if their friends or family were sitting down and watching, it was
hard for them to avoid. As a side note: Very few students mentioned TiVo or other ways to record programming
most students spoke about watching TV via a television set, although students did mention that to watch a specific
program, they tuned into television via their computers. (Click here for more on what students said about TV.)

Across the world, students depend on music not only to make their commutes to school and work more
tolerable, but to regulate their moods.

As a student from China reported: I like enjoying music. It is my way to share the happiness and
sorrows. The reason why I can keep smiling often is that I listen to music to relax. When I read books tiredly,
music is a good way to upgrade my efficiency. When I run, music is a good way to enjoy the process of running.
When I feel great pressure, music is a good way to ease my burden. Music is my true friend from the bottom of my
heart. Over and over again students wrote that music both enhances and shuts out the environment in which
they exist: As one student from Hong Kong noted: When I am alone, I usually prefer loud music that shuts the
world away from me. (Click here for more about students use of music in their lives.)
Email is not dead: it just skews older and is for work.

The non-stop deluge of information coming via mobile phones and online means that most students
across the world have neither the time nor the interest to follow up on even quite important news stories unless
they are personally engaged. For daily news, students have become headline readers via their social networks. In
most cases they only learn more about a story when the details or updates are also served up via text or tweet or
post. (Click here for more on what students said about news.)
TV is all about escape.

No matter where the students were from, the amount of information coming to them via their mobile
phones or the Internet via text message, on Facebook, Twitter, chat, Skype IM, QQ, email, etc. is
overwhelming; students are inundated 24/7. As a result, most students reported that they rarely go prospecting for
hard news at mainstream or legacy news sites. Instead they inhale, almost unconsciously, the news that is
served up on the sidebar of their email account, that is on friends Facebook walls, that comes through on Twitter.
(Click here for more on what students said about news.)

Most students use Facebook and texting (and secondarily voice calls) to communicate with friends.
Students use email to connect to their professors and their jobs. Emails greater formality, and more flexible space
for writing copy or attaching documents, has come to fit a work need better than students 24/7 on-demand
social needs. (Click here for more on how students use email.)

Simplify, simplify. Across the globe, some students turned out to be Transcendentalists-in-the-making:
they noted that they were able to revert to simple pleasures when they gave up all media for 24 hours.

Many students admitted that although they knew they could be distracted at times, they hadnt been fully
aware of how much time they committed to social networking and how poorly they actually were able to parallel
process. I usually study and chat or listen to music at the same time so I wont be bored and feel asleep, wrote a
student from Lebanon. But what I mainly realized is thatwhen you really get off the media you realize how

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many quality things you can do. And students commented on the qualitative differences in even close
relationships during the period they went unplugged. I interacted with my parents more than the usual, reported
a student in Mexico. I fully heard what they said to me without being distracted with my BlackBerry. I helped to
cook and even to wash the dishes. And a student from the US wrote: Ive lived with the same people for three
years now, theyre my best friends, and I think that this is one of the best days weve spent with together. I was
able to really see them, without any distractions, and we were able to revert to simple pleasures. (Click here for
more on what students said about the good news of going unplugged.)

REFERENCES
Official project page:
http://theworldunplugged.wordpress.com/
University of Maryland project page:
http://newsdesk.umd.edu/Journalism/Unplugged_Page2.cfm
Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change
http://www.salzburg.umd.edu/icmpa-study-released-world-unplugged
Study Conclusions page, and read the lessons of this study for students, universities, media entrepreneurs and journalists.
You may also want to click on the country pages, accessible via the top tabs, to see specifics about how students in each
country reacted to going unplugged for a day. The study results are also broken down on the top tabs by what students said
about how they use specific media mobile phones, social networks, news outlets, etc. and what students said about
how they felt going unplugged their emotional responses, such as feeling isolated, bored, as well as relieved.

Addiction to technology and digital detox

Do Your Kids Need a Digital Detox? [From Atlanta Pediatric Hospitals, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta &
Nebraska, USA]
Do you know the hidden dangers that come along with excessive screen time? Your child could be losing sleep and falling
behind on school projects. See how these screens are impacting your child's health.

An average 8 to 18 year old looks at a screen around 7.5 hours a day. That is the equivalent of 114 days out of
the year and 68 of those days are also spent solely watching television.
Television screen exposure is linked to BMI [Body Mass Index] and the average child consumes 18.5 grams of
fat (or 167 calories) for each additional hour of television that is watched (and the television
commercials featuring high-sugar and high-fat snacks aren't helping either).
Watching television is the number one after-school activity and kids who watch more than three hours of TV a
day are at high risk of poor homework completion and grades. They also have a more negative attitude
towards school.
Television isn't the only thing affecting kids; video games are just as unhealthy. Video games are linked to
increased food intake and weight gain and 97 percent of kids play them regularly.
Not only are the number of hours children are watching TV increasing, but the age at which they are exposed
is also getting younger. Right now, the average age for a child to be exposed to TV is 9 months old and by the
time they are three, 1/3 of children have a television in their bedroom.
Remember, you are your child's biggest role model and the average adult spends half of their leisure time
watching television. If we want our children to make healthy changes to their lifestyle, we must make the same
changes.
http://www.strong4life.com/en/pages/galleries/DigitalDetox.aspx

Students 'addiction' to technology 'similar to drug cravings', study finds

Withdrawal symptoms experienced by young people deprived of gadgets and technology is compared to those felt by
drug addicts or smokers going cold turkey, a study has concluded.
A "clear majority" of students profiled failed to voluntarily avoid their gadgets for one full day.
Researchers found nearly four in five students had significant mental and physical distress, panic, confusion and extreme
isolation when forced to unplug from technology for an entire day.
They found college students at campuses across the globe admitted being addicted to modern technology such as
mobile phones, laptops and television as well as social networking such as Facebook and Twitter.
A clear majority" of almost 1,000 university students, interviewed at 12 campuses in 10 countries, including Britain,
America and China, were unable to voluntarily avoid their gadgets for one full day, they concluded.
The University of Maryland research described students thoughts in vivid detail, in which they admit to cravings, anxiety
attacks and depression when forced to abstain from using media.
One unnamed American college student told of their overwhelming cravings, which they confessed was similar to itching
like a crackhead (crack cocaine addict).
The study, published by the Maryland university International Centre for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) and
the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, concluded that most students failed to go the full 24 hours
without media.
The research, titled The world Unplugged, also found students used virtually the same words to describe their
reactions.

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These included emotions such as fretful, confused, anxious, irritable, insecure, nervous, restless, crazy, addicted,
panicked, jealous, angry, lonely, dependent, depressed, jittery and paranoid.
Prof Susan Moeller, who led the research, said technology had changed the students relationships.
"Students talked about how scary it was, how addicted they were, she said.
"They expected the frustration. But they didn't expect to have the psychological effects, to be lonely, to be panicked, the
anxiety, literally heart palpitations.
Technology provides the social network for young people today and they have spent their entire lives being plugged in.
The study interviewed young people, aged between 17 and 23, including about 150 students from Bournemouth
University, who were asked to keep a diary of their thoughts.
They were told to give up their mobile phones, the internet, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and they
were not allowed to watch television.
They were, however, permitted to use landline telephones and read books.
The study found that one in five reported feelings of withdrawal akin to addiction while more than one in 10 admitted being
left confused and feeling like a failure.
Just 21 per cent said they could feel the benefits of being unplugged.
One British participant reported: I am an addict. I dont need alcohol, cocaine or any other derailing form of social
depravity... Media is my drug; without it I was lost.2
Another wrote: I literally didnt know what to do with myself. Going down to the kitchen to pointlessly look in the cupboards
became regular routine, as did getting a drink.
A third said: I became bulimic with my media; I starved myself for a full 15 hours and then had a full-on binge.
While a fourth student added: "I felt like a helpless man on a lonely deserted island in the big ocean.
Prof Moeller added: Some said they wanted to go without technology for a while but they could not as they could be
ostracised by their friends.
When the students did not have their mobile phones and other gadgets, they did report that they did get into more indepth conversations.
Quite a number reported quite a difference in conversation in terms of quality and depth as a result.

Digital Detox detox holidays for adults or detox programs from 16,000
My names Julia and its fair to say Im a digiholic. Virtually every second of my day is spent with my phone at arms reach.
But Im far from the worst offender. The average person checks their phone every six and a half minutes 200 times a
day. One in four of us admits to spending longer online each day than we do asleep, while 73 per cent say that we would
struggle to go the whole day without our phones or computers.
My children, it appears, are going in the same direction. Aged eight and six, both adore nothing more than to go on the
iPad, usually to watch grotesqueries on YouTube. The elder emails her friends whenever she can and is begging to be
allowed to join Facebook. By the age of seven, the average British child born today will have spent an entire year of his or
her life made up of 24-hour days, in front of a screen, a statistic thats causing many middle-class parents to approach
digital devices with the horror previously reserved for deep-fried Mars bars.
Im seeing more and more parents who want advice because their children are spending too much time on screens, says
Frances Booth, author of The Distraction Trap, who runs family and individual coaching sessions on digital detoxing.
Theyre worried their children arent learning how to communicate properly, that they never read any more and that their
learning is being affected because theyre constantly being distracted by phone messages.

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Adults and parents who have found themselves unable to wean their children off computer games and mobile phones are
paying up to 16,000 for a 28-day digital detox programme designed by DrRichard Graham at the Capio
Nightingale Hospital in London.

REFERENCES
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9511611/Addicted-to-the-internet-It-could-be-all-in-your-genes.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8235302/Facebook-generation-suffer-information-withdrawal-syndrome.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10540261/screen-time-ipad-tablet-digital-detox-difital-addiction.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/8002921/Baroness-Susan-Greenfield-society-should-wake-up-to-harmfuleffects-of-internet.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/5316735/Computers-could-be-fuelling-obesity-crisis-says-Baroness-SusanGreenfield.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8067156/Schools-should-provide-the-cure-to-childrens-Facebookaddiction.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10008707/Toddlers-becoming-so-addicted-to-iPads-they-require-therapy.html

-----Declin demografic si social de neinchipuit din cauza noilor tehnologiinici un razboi nu a fost asa distructiv
scadere 1mil/an in Japonia si peste tot in Vest. Left to their own devices, Japanese men arent sure how to find wives
and many are shying away from the hunt, because they simply cant afford it.
http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/368423/will-greens-applaud-japans-demographicimplosion-wesley-j-smith
------Another study on the addiction to Internet MMORPG / video games and more :
1. Overview
2. Parents in a Digital World
3. Digital Junkies
4. iPod. Do You?
5. Internet Gaming

Dr Manfred Spitzer, a German neuroscientist, published a book titled "Digital Dementia" in 2012 that warned
parents and teachers of the dangers of allowing children to spend too much time on a laptop, mobile phone or
other electronic devices.
Dr Spitzer warned that the deficits in brain development are irreversible and called for digital media to be
banned from German classrooms before children become "addicted."

http://www.allcandl.org/acd/manfred-spitzer-digitale-demenz-pdf-rapidshare

iPotty

Digital Dementia

Web addicts have brain changes, research suggests

By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website
Brain scans of white matter in the brain- Continue reading the main story

Web addicts have brain changes similar to those hooked on drugs or

alcohol, preliminary research suggests.
Experts in China scanned the brains of 17 young web addicts and
found disruption in the way their brains were wired up.
They say the discovery, published in Plos One, could lead to new treatments for addictive behaviour.
Internet addiction is a clinical disorder marked by out-of-control internet use.
A research team led by Hao Lei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan carried out brain scans of 35
men and women aged between 14 and 21.
Seventeen of them were classed as having internet addiction disorder (IAD) on the basis of answering yes to
questions such as, "Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back or stop Internet use?"
Specialised MRI brain scans showed changes in the white matter of the brain - the part that contains nerve
fibres - in those classed as being web addicts, compared with non-addicts.
There was evidence of disruption to connections in nerve fibres linking brain areas involved in emotions,
decision making, and self-control.

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DrHao Lei and colleagues write in Plos One: "Overall, our findings indicate that IAD has abnormal white matter
integrity in brain regions involving emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making
and cognitive control.
"The results also suggest that IAD may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of
substance addiction and impulse control disorders."
Prof Gunter Schumann, chair in biological psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London,
said similar findings have been found in video game addicts.
He told the BBC: "For the first time two studies show changes in the neuronal connections between brain
areas as well as changes in brain function in people who are frequently using the internet or video games."
Commenting on the Chinese study, Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones, consultant psychiatrist and honorary senior
lecturer at Imperial College London, said the research was "groundbreaking".
She added: "We are finally being told what clinicians suspected for some time now, that white matter
abnormalities in the orbito-frontal cortex and other truly significant brain areas are present not only in
addictions where substances are involved but also in behavioural ones such as internet addiction."
She said further studies with larger numbers of subjects were needed to confirm the findings.

DIGITAL DEMENTIA
South Korea is one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and the problem of internet addiction
among both adults and children was recognised as far back as the late 1990s.
That is now developing into the early onset of digital dementia a term coined in South Korea meaning a
deterioration in cognitive abilities that is more commonly seen in people who have suffered a head injury or
psychiatric illness.
"Over-use of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the brain," ByunGi-won, a
doctor at the Balance Brain Centre in Seoul, told the JoongAng Daily newspaper.
"Heavy users are likely to develop the left side of their brains, leaving the right side untapped or
underdeveloped," he said.
The right side of the brain is linked with concentration and its failure to develop will affect attention and
memory span, which could in as many as 15 per cent of cases lead to the early onset of dementia.
SEOUL, June 26 (UPI) -- Some teens in South Korea are exhibiting what is being described as
"digital dementia," or deterioration of thinking and memory, a psychiatrist says.

Psychiatrist Kim Dae-jin at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital recently diagnosed a 15-year-old boy
with symptoms of early onset dementia due to intense exposure to digital technology -television, computer, smartphone and video games -- since age 5. He could not

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remember the six-digit keypad code to get into his own home and his memory problems
were hurting his grades in school.
"His brain's ability to transfer information to long-term memory has been impaired
because of his heavy exposure to digital gadgets," the psychiatrist told the Korea
JoongAngDaily.com.
South Korea is highly wired -- 65 percent of teens have smartphones -- and doctors said
they were finding a growing number of cases of memory problems, attention disorders
and emotional flattening among children and teens who spent a lot of time Web
searching, texting and using multimedia.
"Overuse of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the
brain," said ByunGi-won, who runs the Balance Brain Center in Seoul, which helps those
with cognitive problems related to computers and smartphones.
Youth might be at more risk than adults because up to age 25, their brains are still
developing.
"From the early 2000s, I've seen a drastic increase in patients with reduced memory
spans, especially young people. When I looked at it, most of them were exposed to the
heavy consumption of digital gadgets," Dr. Kim Young-bo at Gachon University Gil Medical
Center's brain research institute in Incheon told the newspaper.
"The gadgets ease the burden of memorizing tedious information but if we don't use our
brain functions, the overall cognitive skills of being aware and perception will ultimately
decrease."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/10138403/Surge-in-digitaldementia.html

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2013/06/26/Some-teens-in-South-Korea-exhibiting-digitaldementia/UPI-69441372251061/#ixzz2q0buLhac