Gen+Ys+addiction+to+technology+causing+them+serious+health+issues.


 * Name**: Veensha Luchmun
 * Student Number**: n7375484
 * Tutor Name**: Judith Meiklejohn


 * “The medium, or process, of our time - electric technology is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. **
 * It is forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted. **
 * Everything is changing: you, your family, your education, your neighbourhood, your job, your government, your relation to the others. And they're changing dramatically". Marshall McLuhan, The medium is the message, 1967. **


 * Cultural Artefact **

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This video was created by James, a 25 year old male who is known as “stickyearwax” on YouTube. Currently he has 34 subscribers and has uploaded 44 videos on YouTube with a total of 321,364 views. This video starts with the birth of Generation Y’ers accompanied by a very slow pace music which gradually speeds up as this generation grows. Nearing the end of the video where the narrator predicts the future of this generation, the people in this video are shown to be using technological devices for almost everything in their daily life. Also, the video is fast forwarded, with high intensity music to show how life is lived in a fast pace. (CSIRO YouTube, 2006).


 * Public Health Issue **

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The evolution of technology in the past few decades has affected family structures, employer-employee relationships (Swiggard, Muchnick, Salmons and Parker, 2011), the way people completed their tasks, entertain, make purchases, travel and communicate (Martin & Tulgan, 2001; Na’Desh, 2008; Tapscott, 2009; Twenge, 2006). As shown in the artefact, the generation that grew simultaneously with the advancement of technology is Generation Y, also known as the Millenials (Bradley, 2003). With the increasing amount of young people spending more time online, mental health issues and obesity are the most common outcomes (Siegle, 2010). Thus the negative effects emerging from the digital world appearing as public health and social problems must be dealt with much quicker than intended (Weare, 2004).


 * Literature Review **

According to McQuire (2006), the term technology comes from the Greek and Latin word “techne” which was interpreted as “arts” of the skills. On the other hand, internet was first derived from the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) which was primarily prioritised for the research society (Trumpy and Gagnaire, 2004). However after the year 1985, internet became available to enterprises, then in the 1990s, the World Wide Web (WWW) and the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) revolutionised the digital world (Trumpy and Gagnaire, 2004). Between 1998 to 2008-09, household access to internet was increased from 16% to 72% and in 2009, around 841,000 (31%) children aged between 5-14 years old had their own mobile phones (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). Thus the needs and demands for the fastest and most recent technologies are much anticipated by both the suppliers and the users (Adam, 2009). With the skyrocketing proliferation of new technologies such as smart phones, X-box, laptops, iPads and with the increase in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, their side effects have already started appearing in the Generation Y (Weare, 2004), those born between 1980 to 2000 (Cennamo and Gardner, 2007).

Jorgensen (2003) stated this generation is also known as the “media-savvy” or the “net generation” due to their high skills in the digital world. This is because Generation Y members have been using computers since a very young age and are said to be e-learners (Allerton, 2001). With the number of increasing social networking sites, together with the shyness and fear of meeting people, addiction to internet has probably commenced (Chack and Leung, 2004). Internet addiction was first brought up in 1996 by the American Psychological Association (Young, 1996) and created a series of controversial debate (Hamade, 2009). People suffering form Internet addiction disorders have similar symptoms to those suffering from other addictions and may be victims of other disorders (Hamade, 2009).

Additionally, with the amount of adolescents using media/technology gadgets for an average time of approximately 8 hours a day (Rich, 2003), there are concerns that childhood is disappearing and the boundaries between childhood and adulthood are vanishing (Weare, 2004). This was supported by Rich (2003), who affirmed that the time of adolescence is the crucial period where young teenagers develop the sense of self, by changing characters everyday to explore themselves. If these teenagers are overly exposed to the media or to the web, their frequently changing characters will be highly influenced by the celebrities they come across. Thus, their creativities are destroyed, they can suffer from aggressive behaviour by imitating their ideal web personality and their social bonds can be affected (Weare, 2004). This was supported by Rich (2003) who confirms that clinicians were able to prove that high exposure to violent materials from either online or from the media activates the amygdale, the area that regulates the “fight and flight” response and which rules the long-term memory programming. Violent scenes also stimulate the premotor areas of the frontal cortex, which get the body ready for physical actions (Rich, 2003). Bastian, Jetten and Radke (2011) stated that a recent study made by the University of Queensland that involved 144 participants, found that players often dehumanise their rivals when they are expose to violence.

Moreover, the urge to have the cutting-edge technology and the fastest internet connection is somehow subdivided into the society as the ones who can financially afford them, also referred to as the information-rich, and the ones who cannot afford known as the information-poor (Weare, 2004). On the same accord, Ling (2000) argued that in this modern digital society, young’s people need for companionship, status and autonomy will be dependent of whether or not they own a computer, have access to the internet, own one of the latest mobile phones or possess the newest games. This can limit interactions with peers, restrict development of social skills and in turn obstruct the building up of tolerance towards others (Ridge and Millar, 2000).

Likewise, Rich (2003) affirmed that with the increase of social networking sites, youngsters are losing the capability of face-to-face communication. This was also supported by Hamade (2009) who stated that cyber-relationship addiction which is defined as the urge of staying online in order to socialise is responsible for the loss of social skills among youngsters. Thus, people who use these types of communications might lose their social interactive abilities in real life (Hamade, 2009), failure to comprehend and accept others and incapable to gather a sense of belonging (Ridge and Millar, 2000). This could result in psychological problems where people end up losing their jobs, their friends and even being divorced (Suler, 2004).

Most importantly, with the boost in online technologies and with the increase in internet banking and shopping hacking of personal information which means invasion of strangers has expanded significantly (Hundley and Shyles, 2010). According to Heaney (2007), Gen Y users are frequent customers of internet banking and are 4 times more likely to have signed up for online financial facilities. Williams (2000) suggests that all these facilities, however, come with security problems and consumers have high risk of losing their money.

However, in most of the studies that have been performed so far, researchers have looked into the hours that a specific amount of public have spent while engaging in online social networking sites, gaming, surfing and shopping. Because, these participants have the “guilt” feeling of staying online for such long times, their approach towards this study have been overrated. On the other side, those who never admit spending long hours on the net, underrated their feelings (Bastian, Jetten and Radke, 2011). Also, because technology addiction is relatively new, more research needs to be carried out with larger numbers of participants.


 * Cultural and Social Analysis **

Rich (2003) asserted that high exposure of the internet and media can result firstly, in aggressive behaviour, thoughts and attitudes due to games, movies and uncensored violence on television. As a result, adolescents in particular become desensitised (Rich 2003). Additionally, the teenagers develop feelings of anxiety and fear (Weare, 2004).

Secondly, Rich (2003) emphasized that obesity, type 2 diabetics and hypertension are predominant medical conditions associated with the overuse of high technological devices where consumers tend to have a sedentary lifestyle. This clearly links the lack of activity to amount of time the teens spend in front of the television or computer screen (Rich, 2003). On top, a different study showed that the amount of snack consumed by viewers while watching television was 4 times more than usual (Rich, 2003).

Thirdly, Rich (2003) claimed that the number of youngsters viewing sexual scenes on television alone is estimated to be around 15,000 annually and an American study of high school students showed that even though they receive sexual education from school, more than 50% of them said that they learned more about sex, pregnancy and contraception from movies and television. Rich (2003) justified this with the three million new cases of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) that are registered in North America annually.

Also, Generation Y suffers from mental health and physical health problems due to the constant exposure to drugs, smoking and alcohol because of the influence of technology (Rich 2003; Weare 2004). According to the ABS (2009), in the year 2004-2005, 34% of men aged between 18 to 24 years were smokers. In the year 2007, 19% of men in the same age group were involved in high risk drinking at least once a week, and 23% of people aged between 15-24 years old were engaged in illicit drugs. That amount was double for the aged group of 25 years and older (ABS, 2009).

Finally, Rich (2003) went further by postulating that the need to have a perfect body, by dieting, over-exercising and thus developing eating disorders is also linked to the influence of media and technology. The viewers are flooded with the so called media-perfect body and this has changed their perception of an ideal body image (Rich, 2003).

Furthermore, the effects of cyber bullying can result in suicidal attempts due to depression (Siegle, 2010). According to an AP-MTV (2009) poll, as cited in Siegle (2010), more than three quarter of the participants aged from 14-24 years believed that digital abusive behaviour is a serious offence. Goodstein (2008) highlighted that a cyber bully does not have to physically empower his victims and instead of whispers behind someone’s back, the message is just posted online and the whole world can read about it. An example where cyber bullying took a terrible turn is when an 18 year old Ohio girl committed suicide after her boyfriend posted her nude photo online and other students started to harass her about it (Zetter, 2009).

The other outcome that predominates is the amount of information that can be garnered. This seems to be supported by Marshall McLuhan’s (1911-1980) theory that “ One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with ” (Liquid Information, 2005). With the diverse quantity of unfiltered and unsorted information and the ability to generate information at a high speed, technology is a primary medium for information overload (White and Dorman, 2000).

Awareness for these issues is significant since internet addiction affects both the victims and the society. Hamade (2009) recommended that awareness campaigns should be on in all sorts of media including television, radio channels, magazines and newspapers so that people are able to seek professional advice related to medicine, health, psychology, sociology, information science and other fields that are associated with this type of addiction. This was supported by both Rich (2003) and Siegle (2010) who claimed that awareness among parents and educators play an important role in preventing exponential spread of this addiction.


 * Analysis and Reflections **

This artefact represents exactly how the existence of Generation Y and the evolution of technology are interconnected. Technology in that epoch was designed to make life easier and less stressful and indeed Generation Y members have accepted this as a component of their lifestyle. Therefore, in my opinion, this generation has always been given the effortless options. But, who is accountable for the negative effects that technology is causing in the current time and will cause in future generation? Will the society be accused of overflowing the demand market? Will it be the suppliers who showered the world with irresistible new forms of technologies? Or will Generation Y be blamed just because they were born in the wrong technological time?

The answers to these questions are not so simple and perhaps explain why internet addiction is one of the main complex conditions affecting adolescents (Hamade, 2009). As Park and Jeng-Chung (2007) suggested that psychological help should be provided for intense users and awareness should be created among potentially vulnerable consumers.

After analysing this issue critically, I discovered that Generation Y is like any other generation who is following trends and tendencies to sustain their existence. They are doing so by the using high technological devices. Below is a quote to endorse the severity of the situation:

// “With the development of the Internet and with the increasing pervasiveness of communication between networked computers, we are in the middle of the most transforming technical event since the capture of fire” (Barlow,1995). //

Being part of Generation Y myself, I have seen how susceptible this generation is towards technology addiction and learned how to limit myself from overusing it and finding the right balance. Lord Buddha’s teaching about the “The middle way” and how “the string in the musical instrument should not be too loose or too tight for harmonious tunes” applies exactly in this situation (United Earth, 2010). Not to forget that technology has and is still collaborating a lot in our daily lifestyle and I believe its eradication would create chaos.

** Other links and videos ** media type="youtube" key="MEqOmoTAQrA?version=3" height="360" width="640"

[|Cybersmart provides activities, resources and practical advice to help young kids, kids, teens and parents safely enjoy the online world]

[|Talk with your kids about being safer online]

[|Teens & technology: Wired for sound? Turn it down!]

[|GEN-Y'S ARE ADDICTED TO FACEBOOK, ADDICTION WORST THAN COCAINE, WITHDRAWAL CAN BE LIKE TRYING TO QUIT SMOKING]

Reflection Task

** Page 1 ** : Each time you sleep with someone, you're also sleeping with his past

** Comment ** : ** Very interesting title! **

Well done for such a great work!! Your wiki is very interesting and very formative. Although the rate of sexually transmitted infections (STI) is increasing, this topic still remains a taboo. I also found in my research that media has a lot to do with the rapid rise in STI.

The statistics are shocking and I wonder what they will be in the future. It is quite sad to mention that when you start dating someone, instead of getting to know him better, you have to first study his past and still insist for safe sex. So, how do we learn when to trust someone? So, yeah, I agree that whenever you sleep with someone, you are sleeping with his past.

** Page 2 ** : Lost in Translation- Technological Takeover of Generation Y

** Comment: Great artefact!! **

I really like your artefact!! Your report is very well done and well presented. I have also done my wiki on the same topic and have seen similar negative effects of technology.

Last week, I was in a training room with around 30 other people. During our 10 minutes pause time, almost everybody got their phones out and started playing, texting and updating their profiles but none of us was actually communicating with each other in the room. No one was interested for a 2 minutes stretch or even a 30 seconds walk to throw their rubbish. They all just sat down and kept playing with their phones. From my own experience and from what I have researched, I can surely agree that face-to-face conversations are decreasing.

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