Detox for digital addiction

Four teenagers sit in a circle in a small room. Their heads are bent forward and their eyes stare downward. With rapid motion, their fingers move across their empty laps as if they are typing make-believe messages.

A counselor walks into the room and one of the young adults is motioned to a podium. With her eyes still staring downward, she speaks in quiet words.

"My name is Haley and I am a cellphone addict."

Don't laugh. There is no medical term for this condition yet, but don't be surprised if one is invented within the very near future.

According to CNN's Kelly Wallace, 50 percent of teens and 27 percent 0f adults admit they are addicted to their mobile devices. Nearly 80 percent of teens check their phones hourly, and 72 percent feel the need to respond immediately.

Digital detox expert Holland Haiis says that if your teens would prefer gaming or texting indoors alone, as opposed to going out to social events, you may have a problem. In addition, two-thirds of parents surveyed feel their teens spend too much time staring at electronic screens of every kind.

Wallace also points out that Internet and mobile device addictions are viewed as public health threats in other parts of the world, but they are not yet recognized as disorders in the United States.

If you add the fact that 1.6 million car accidents each year are caused by cellphone use and that 330,000 people are killed or injured in these crashes during text messaging, you wonder why this problem has not already been classified as an epidemic.

With more than 4 billion cellphones in use, Washington Times reporter Paul Mountjoy has identified those married to their digital devices as the "Narcissist Generation." He says these teens and adults believe they have become so important and so popular that they reinforce what they think are positive self-images by using their phones all day long. The irony is they suffer from poor self-esteem and social anxiety disorders.

I spoke with a college baseball coach who was recruiting a particular player from a local high school. While they were talking to each other, the player made no eye contact and appeared to be very nervous. Then his cellphone rang and he answered it while the coach was still speaking to him.

"I checked him right off my list," said the coach. "We value people skills as much as batting averages."

A while back, my family and I went to dinner. We sat near another family and their children had their phones out. The entire time we spent there, I never saw the kids lift their eyes from their phones, nor did they ever appear to speak to anyone. Even while they ate, their forks were in one hand and their phones were in the other.

Someone once said that people who spend too much time on their phones are missing out on the world around them. A popular video shows this exact theme. A man misses out on meeting a woman who would have been his perfect choice to date and even to marry because he never looked up from his phone while she walked right on by instead of asking him for directions because he was too preoccupied.

I admit I'm guilty, too. I text. I Google. I Facebook, but when I can't see a face, there is no honest intimacy shared.

Perhaps we can try this experiment. Have a no technology day once a week, preferably on a Saturday or Sunday. No phones, no computers, no video games or other electronic devices can be used. We talk and listen to each other face to face.

You say this wouldn't work. Then let's give up that idea and go with the flow. Encourage total digital dependency. Have no human contact whatsoever.

Wait, We are doing that now, aren't we?

But there is still one more thing to fear.

The World Health Organization has determined that levels of electromagnetic radiation emitted by cellphones are possible causes of brain cancer.

Never mind that, too. We really don't use our brains for much anymore anyway.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.