Frightening addiction?

The BBC’s recent ‘Virtual Revolution’ carried warnings of internet addiction in South Korea spreading to the UK. The world is undoubtedly changing and debate centres on whether it is changing for the better or worse.

Statistics from South Korea were intriguing – 62% of 3-5 yr olds regularly using the web for up to 8 hours a week, twice the exposure of British 5 year olds and stating that web addiction is affecting 210,000 children – 80% on medication and 20% hospital admittance.

I’ve continued to wrestle with the polar opinions of two of the programme’s commentators. On one hand the genius and ever-opinionated Stephen Fry extolled the virtues of the wired world, saying that anyone “not appreciating that we had the knowledge of the ages gathered for us to browse in our pockets – should be slapped!” Then there was a political scientist from Cambridge University discussing the difference between long-term and short-term reading, stating that students these days groaned when told that they had to read paper books.

As I considered these points, I got a bus to Old Street and found myself opposite a sample of student-looking types. What struck me was their varying reading matter. These students all appeared to be in the same age bracket. One was reading a substantial text book, the girl sat next to me was reading a print out from the internet, including some pages of Wikipedia definitions, and next to her was a chap using an Amazon Kindle. There was a final student type surfing on an iPhone. In short, there was a snapshot of young people using a wide range of approaches to accessing information.

In truth, it seems that we assimilate new technologies as they appear, finding new and better ways of putting it all together for our benefit. Personally I find it exciting not frightening. So I guess I’m with Mr Fry on this one.

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