IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014 - 6

are immersed in the screen [6]? Closer to home, conchores undone, and dinner unmade? And even though
sider how your own family life has been affected by
we recognize this, we keep repeating the cycle.
the hours you, your children, and your spouse spend
online instead of relating to each other [7].
The Great Sucking Sound
Of course we are not writing this editorial from an
At the end of the day, the main currency of a human life is
Amish village [8]. We've been down the same road
time, and time spent engaging the virtual world displaces
of time-wasting, mind-numbing technology use, and
real life activities. This tendency to be time-sucked by
like everyone else, we've watched our own screen
our devices seems to be a universal feature of the techtime increase at an alarming pace in the last few
nology, experienced by all cultures that have adopted it.
years. In 2009, the average U.S. adult spent 8.5 hours
It's not just South Korea and China, but all of us who are
a day on digital devices, but tablets and smart phones
allowing our real lives to fade into secondary importance
have raised that figure to a staggering 11.5 hours per
as we spend ever more time locked-in by the always-on,
day. Barring sleep, we have just 16 hours each day
ever beckoning digital world. Filmmaker Shlam gets it
to live our conscious lives. If we spend 11 of them
right when she warns that "something is getting lost" in
online, at a console, or in a game, that's 69% of our
our physical, real, everyday lives [12].
waking lives. No matter how you slice it, that's a lot
The great sucking sound associated with these techof screen time [9]. Even those figures may underrenologies is the wholesale waste of billions of hours of
port the problem. A recent study from comScore and
productive and meaningful living time from the world's
Jumptap shows total U.S. Internet
people into fruitless pastimes that
use nearly doubled between 2010 and
yield few tangible rewards [13]. The
Time spent in
2013, from 451 billion minutes to 890
productivity void of all these wasted
electronic vectors
billion minutes [10].
hours is already beginning to alarm
of nothingness
Horror stories in the news abound,
U.S. employers, as analysts bemoan
of parents disregarding their kids
that employees spend one quarter
is contributing
to the point of starvation, students
of their online time at the office on
to the decay of
flunking out of school, gamers dying
non-work related Internet surfing,
our meaningful,
from heart attacks, even kids poithus squandering an average of five
relationships.
soning their parents to get online
hours per week [14]. Yet where are the
[28]. We shake our heads at these
experts calculating the loss of quality
previously unimaginable stories of excess, but lately
parenting hours? Marriage hours? Study hours? playing,
they've begun hitting closer to home. How many
tinkering, walking, cooking, exercising, dancing, musicreaders have seen close friends, even family members
making, lovemaking, stargazing, living hours [15]?
seduced away from their meaningful relationships by
We're just beginning to realize that time spent in
the promise of a Second Life or a tryst in World of
the electronic vectors of nothingness is contributing
Warcraft? It's the elephant in the room, the skeleton
to the decay of our meaningful, face-to-face, heartin the closet, the emperor parading naked down the
to-heart, and skin-to-skin relationships [17]. Does
street. Clearly something is going on.
this surprise anyone?
Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
All those online hours come at a high cost. We
of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) in 2012 identified
feel pressured, like there is never enough time to get
Internet Addiction as "an issue deserving of further
everything done [18]. And kids suffer when their
study" [11], we're not here to debate that topic. Nor
parents are not there for them. "Time, time, there's
do we want to argue about whether screen time can
never enough time." It's ironic that all of our labor
be instructive, or useful, etc., as those discussions
saving devices and technologies, especially since the
are already raging elsewhere, with both sides ably
arrival of the personal computer, have not liberated
defended. Instead we're concerned about the milus. Instead, where they give us additional time on the
lions of everyday users - male and female, adult and
one hand, they steal it back with the other [7].
child - who would never consider themselves Internet
addicts, yet still spend countless hours staring into a
Ask the Difficult Questions
flickering screen or wiggling a game controller - perThe real concern is whether we can leave the screen
haps long after common sense has told us to stop.
behind when we need to. To see if we are in control,
Most of us legitimately require screen time for
ask yourself a few of the following questions.
work, but we often get stuck there. How many times
have we said, "I'm just going to check my email, or
1) Is your phone or computer the first thing you go
update my professional profile, or play one more
to in the morning after you get out of bed?
quick round of this game," only to find ourselves, stiff
2) Do you turn to the screen out of boredom or
and aching, two hours later, with papers ungraded,
habit?
6

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2014

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