The digital compulsion to spend hours each day online is not as a pathology bu sheds light on some of the mind’s most salient, and utterly normal, operations, according to the latest research.
It was not psychiatry’s finest hour. Stat News reports that just over 20 years ago a psychotherapist claimed he had discovered a new mental illness, which he named Internet Abuse Disorder. He saw it all around him: people compulsively reading websites and sending email and feeling anxious if they couldn’t. Psychiatrists and laypeople alike flocked to a listserv to share their experience with this supposed affliction, and the American Psychiatric Association appointed a task force to explore whether there was sufficient evidence to support recognising internet “abuse” as a mental disorder.
Verdict: There wasn’t then and there isn’t now. Spending hours each day online via either mobile devices or the stationary kind is not a mental illness. In fact, the report says, the original proposal, by the late Dr Ivan Goldberg, was meant as a joke.
More than any other behavior that people engage in compulsively, the digital version – from checking Facebook to texting – shows that just because you’re compulsive about something doesn’t mean you have a broken brain. To the contrary, the report says. As with other compulsions that fall well short of pathology, the allure of being online sheds light on some of the mind’s most salient, and utterly normal, operations, according to the latest research. From our desire to connect to the way we respond to unpredictable rewards, our minds are wired in a way that lets digital technology sink its hooks into us.
First, a definition. A compulsive behavior is one that is repeated and chronic, and arises from a feeling of anxiety. Just as someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) compulsively and repeatedly washes her hands, for instance, to alleviate the anxiety that comes from believing she is covered with germs, so mentally healthy people who behave compulsively are also driven by anxiety. (Checking one’s phone repeatedly is not considered a disorder, however, because the behavior is grounded in reality, not a delusion, and it usually doesn’t get in the way of living a normal life.)
Often, said Moez Limayem, of the University of South Florida, who led a 2015 study on mobile use, “The underlying motivation to use a mobile phone is not pleasure,” but is instead “a response to heightened stress and anxiety.”
Start with the fact that many of us feel anxious if we’re not making use of every tiny slice of time. The effort required for a single online “transaction” – a click, a view, checking Instagram or Facebook – is minuscule, so much so that not texting or reading your smartphone screen feels like a greater burden than doing so. “The timescale on which you work with online technology is central to making it compelling,” said psychologist Tom Stafford of the University of Sheffield in England. “What else can you do in five seconds that’s interesting? Why not check your phone?” This is a large part of why “using the internet can be compulsive,” he said.
One reason we often feel anxious if we’re not using every tiny slice of time is that we find it hard – even unpleasant and anxiety-producing – to be alone with our thoughts, as a 2014 study showed. Researchers led by social psychologist Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia gave volunteers two options: do “nothing” for 15 minutes or give themselves a small electric shock (which three-quarters had previously told the researchers they’d pay money not to experience). Two-thirds of the men and one-quarter of the women chose the latter, so anxious were they for “something to do.” “The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself,” Wilson concluded.
Especially when the mind encounters payoffs structured like a slot machine’s. Like those one-armed bandits, the digital world offers what are called intermittent/variable rewards: An action – pulling the slot machine’s arm, checking for texts – can bring either a payoff or nothing. Most of what fills your Twitter feed or Facebook updates is digital dross. (“Barbara changed her Facebook picture!”) Payoff: zero. But every so often, you find a gem – a friend offering Bruce Springsteen tickets, an acquaintance posting a link to the morning’s must-read Trump story.
“If I give you a treat sometimes, you have to keep checking all the time: You don’t know when it will come,” said Stafford. “No matter how frequently you check, even if you checked only a second ago, a brilliant email might have just come in. You feel anxiety about possibly missing something.” Such low-cost, occasionally high-reward activities are catnip to the brain.
The report says if we’re prevented from compulsively checking for texts, the anxiety that the compulsive behavior alleviates comes roaring back. Psychologists have found that people who are separated from their smartphone experience an elevated heart rate and other signs of anxiety.
In one 2016 study, volunteers who filled out a standard questionnaire about their smartphone use and emotions told researchers that they turn to their phones “to avoid negative experiences or feelings” and “to cope (with) or escape from feelings related to an anxiety-inducing situation.” Psychologist Alejandro Lleras, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the study, described it as a security-blanket effect, absorbing our bubbling-over anxiety.
That fits with studies finding that people text as a way to escape anxiety; something like 70% of study participants say smartphones and texting help them overcome anxiety and other negative moods. It’s become a stereotype that people in awkward (read: anxiety-provoking) situations “turn to their mobile phones as a way to disengage,” the Illinois researchers wrote, especially “during times of more intense distress.”
Lleras and a colleague gave volunteers a short writing assignment that, they explained (falsely), would be evaluated by two experts. To ratchet up the stress further, the researchers said the experts would also interview them about their essay. While waiting for that, half the volunteers had access to their mobile phones and half didn’t. Among those who were able to text and surf to their anxiety-ridden-heart’s content, half felt intense anxiety. In comparison, three-quarters of those who were deprived of their phones did, the researchers reported.
By giving in to a compulsion to use their phone, many of the study volunteers were able to defuse much of their anxiety. “People seem to be less vulnerable to becoming stressed in anxiety-provoking situations when they have access” to their mobile phone, the researchers wrote.
It’s not only being deprived of those variable-interval rewards that makes ditching their smartphone unthinkable for many people. Because it has become our main connection to other people and the world at large, the anxiety that comes from not being able to check it arises, too, from the feeling of missing something, as if everyone else is plugged in, connected, on top of things, and you aren’t.
“There are people who feel, if I’m not there, if I’m not on that site, I’m missing something – something about my friends, or my health, or anything else,” said psychiatrist Dr David Reiss, who practices in San Diego.
The report says the internet exploits this FOMO, or fear of missing out. Being disconnected is synonymous with missing out. By making us feel we are always connected to the world, smartphones also alleviate the anxiety that otherwise floods into us from feeling alone and untethered.
A 2010 study by the International Centre for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland showed how profound an existential dread engulfs people cut off from the online world. The researchers asked 200 students to abstain from using their phones and computers (and all other media) for 24 hours.
According to the report, describing their experience, the students said they felt disconnected and anxious that they were missing out on something, using terms evoking compulsion.
And if we do miss out? If we’re not connected? If existence is defined these days by an online presence, then not being online is not to exist, the report says. Human history knows no greater motivation for action than the existential one of raging against the dying of the light. When we are not online, when we are not connected, when we miss out, we do not exist, and that causes the most unbearable and existential anxiety there is.
The report says, that is how we should understand the digital compulsion: not as a pathology, but as the result of the online world’s ability to tap into something deep in the human psyche and make many of us digital casualties.
Abstract 1
Information technology use is typically assumed to have positive effects for users, yet information technology use may also lead to negative consequences with various degrees of gravity. In the current work, we build on dual-systems theories to investigate negative consequences associated with mobile phones use (MPU), defined as the extent to which the use of mobile phones is perceived to create problems in managing one's personal and social life. According to dual-system theories, human behaviour is guided by two systems: reflexive (automatic) and reflective (control), which most of the time work in harmony. But when the two systems come into conflict, they will both complete to exert their influences over behaviour. Thus, we view the negative consequences associated with MPU as an outcome of the tug-of-war between the two systems influencing our day-to-day behaviours, where reflexive system is represented in our study by MPU habits and reflective system is represented by self-regulation. We hypothesise that the influence of habit and self-regulation on these negative consequences will be mediated through MPU. A partial least square analysis of 266 responses was used to validate and test our model. The study results generally support our model. The theoretical and practical implications of our study are discussed.
Authors
Moez Limayem
Abstract 2
In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.
Authors
Timothy D Wilson, David A Reinhard, Erin C Westgate, Daniel T Gilbert, Nicole Ellerbeck, Cheryl Hahn, Casey L Brown, Adi Shaked
Abstract 3
Previous research shows that high Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use is associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and overall psychological distress; however, there are few relevant studies on this topic. The current study was conducted to explore the relationship between Internet and mobile phone use and mental health. In Study 1, participants were given questionnaires to assess their manner of mobile phone and Internet use and their levels of depression and anxiety. There were strong positive relationships between lower mental health and problematic ICT use, especially when people turned to ICTs to avoid negative experiences or feelings. However, when participants used ICTs merely to escape boredom, no link was found between ICT use and mental health problems. Study 2 was completed to observe how students utilize their mobile phones to cope or escape from feelings related to an anxiety-inducing situation. Results indicated that the mobile phone may offer a small “security blanket” effect, lowering the initial negative reaction to stress, although the pattern of stress over the course of the experiment was the same for participants in all groups. Our findings suggest that long term utilization of ICTs as an emotional coping strategy may have a negative influence on mental health and/or exacerbate mental health predispositions.
Authors
Tayana Panova, Alejandro Lleras
[link url="https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/08/social-media-compulsion-mental-illness/"]Stat News report[/link]
[link url="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/isj.12065/abstract"]Information Systems Journal abstract[/link]
[link url="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75"]Science abstract[/link]
[link url="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215303332"]Computers in Human Behaviour abstract[/link]
[link url="https://withoutmedia.wordpress.com/"]A Day without Media research[/link]