enthalpy

Thursday, June 09, 2005


Here's a shocker: People love their cell phones.
Sergio Chaparro's information-technology students had more than just a healthy attachment to their cell phones.

When he asked them to shut them off for three days, they panicked.

"They were afraid. They were truly afraid," Chaparro, then an instructor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, recalled of the assignment last year. "They thought it was going to be a painful experience, and they were right."

Only three of about 220 students managed to complete the assignment.
No other technology has become so widely available in such a short period of time, and they're damn awfully useful, so it's not much of a surprise. But addiction? That may be a stretch.
"If you try to exert control over your use of the phone and you can't do it, that's dependence. That's addiction," said Tecce, who studies "psychobiological behavior" including addictions and phobias.
I don't think so. Heroin is a dependency, a cell phone convenient.



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