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Ashley Olsen
Ms. Young
English 2010
8 Nov. 2015
An Addict to Technology
Technology takes up a huge part in todays society with advancements on cars,
electronics, businesses, communication, etc. People, adolescents especially, have become
extremely addicted to technology, and it is making a lasting effect on society. Its time for the
parents of teens to realize that using technology 24 hours a day, seven days a week will make us
dependent upon it. Dont you want your children to be able to do things on their own if
electronics arent available? Technology addiction and dependency is affecting the social skills
of everyone involved. Constantly being connected to the online world has and will cause
future generations to be isolated and not very sociable.
Technology has diminished social skills by allowing teenagers to get away with texting
and online gaming instead of face to face interaction. Todd Essig, a Clinical Assistant Professor
of Psychiatry at New York Medical College says, Playing computer games excessively to the
point that such activity signicantly encroaches on family relationships, education, meeting
developmental tasks (e.g., identity formation, independence, self-regulation, social skills, or selfesteem), and even physical health is damaging for teens (Essig 1145). Having too much of one
thing in life puts other things in life at risk. Adolescents have their whole life ahead of them and
instead of going out and living it, some choose to stay inside all day playing their video games,
watching television and posting things on social media. Online gaming is a fun way for kids to

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meet other kids who like the same thing as them, but it isnt the ideal way to meet friends. They
need to grow and learn how to communicate with people out in the real world because the real
world is nothing like a video game.
Some people prefer communicating online instead of going through others. Now-a-days,
to get a hold of someone all they have to do is shoot a text, which is very convenient, but it has
gone to a whole new level. Teenagers who is feel extra anti-social can easily order food online
and have it delivered so that they dont have to leave their home or accidentally run into someone
they know. If adolescents are only purchasing things online, they wont develop the skills to do it
in person when the time comes. This may only be the case if someone had spent their day talking
to too many people and needed a break, but in other cases people can get anxiety from the stress
of keeping a conversation with someone else. People who lack social skills are more likely to
turn to online interaction, which makes them feel more comfortable. Giulia Fioravanti from the
University of Florence, with expertise in Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology says, One
possibility is that people with poor social skills are especially prone to develop a preference for
online social interaction which, in turn, predicts problematic usage (Fioravanti 318). Becoming
more familiar with things online, can make it harder for adolescents to get themselves to do
anything offline.
Being addicted to cell phones and social media can possibly weaken their relationships. A
relationship is the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the
state of being connected (Webster). Truly connecting with someone includes sharing
experiences and memories with one another. Its hard to do that when cell phone addiction causes
a gap between two people. Now-a-days teenagers text each other when theyre in the same room.
They cant log off of their online life and be with the people that are a foot away from them. If

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two people were to meet online there would be a whole part of their relationship missing: the
face-to-face interaction part where they spend time with each other and learn how to socialize in
a normal way. Maura Keller, a Minneapolis-based writer and editor, argues that social media can
burden face-to-face relationships: Face-to-face relationships lose much of their richness, depth,
and complexity if people check their smartphones rather than interact with friends and family
who may be present (Keller 10). Those on the other end of digital messages are seen as more
important than the people we are spending time with. Technology allows people to meet digitally,
but continuing to communicate that way doesnt give people the vital life experience of face to
face interaction.
Adolescents social lives tend to be mainly online and that can affect their future social
interactions that have to be face to face. In some cases, they will have to find a job and wont be
able to do a texting interview; theyll have to go in knowing how to appropriately and effectively
communicate with the interviewer. Adolescents arent going to learn appropriate socials skills
online with a bunch of other immature adolescents, more often than not. They need to learn by
experience, but with advanced technology and everyone being tuned into it constantly, face to
face interaction gets put at the bottom of the priority list. A part of face-to-face contact is reading
peoples emotions. Katherine Bindley a writer for the Huffington Post says, Humans send many
nonverbal cues, from fidgeting to foot tapping, long pauses to eye contact. Reading those signs is
a skill that young people are not learning when they're using these devices (Bindley).
Adolescents wont be able to handle spontaneous social interactions very well if they arent
using the little social skills they have.
Technology has become an addiction for all people, especially adolescents. They have
found a way to be very social online, which makes things easy and not emotionally attached, but

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it doesnt help an individual in the long run. Its important that adolescents are able to transition
from teenage slang that is all over social media into speaking and communicating how most
adults do in the real world. They may not be aware that life isnt the same when they grow up,
and not all communication is done through text. Cell phones can become a barrier in
relationships, especially by taking away the time that an adolescent should be spending with
family. Parents need to become aware of the possible outcomes of addiction to video games and
texting, such as social isolation and dependency on electronics. To fix this problem, society
either has to show that there is value in offline relations, or people need to just monitor their own
technology use. Of course technology is a great thing and is used for many functions in life, but
there needs to be distinction between using it for efficiency and convenience and being addicted
to it.

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Works Cited
Bindley, Katherine. "When Children Text All Day, What Happens To Their Social Skills?" The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 9 Dec. 2011. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Essig, Todd. "The Addiction Concept and Technology: Diagnosis, Metaphor, or Something Else?
A Psychodynamic Point Of View." Journal of Clinical Psychology 68.11 (2012): 11751184. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.Works Cited
Fioravanti, Giulia, Davide Dttore, and Silvia Casale. "Adolescent Internet Addiction: Testing
the Association between Self-Esteem, the Perception of Internet Attributes, And
Preference for Online Social Interactions." Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social
Networking 15.6 (2012): 318-323. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
"Google." Google. Dictionary. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Keller, M. Social media and interpersonal communication. SocialWorkToday, 73(3), (2013) 10.
Retrieved from http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/051313p10.shtm
Webster-Merriam. Merriam-Webster. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.