Technology provides benefits, like resources, information, connection to old or far-away friends and families, humor, opportunities, and more. While technology enhances our lives, it creates considerable challenges for kids and adults alike and is a consequential driver of the rise in anxiety, stress, depression, suicide, and other disorders. Frenetic Task Switching, A Rise in Individualization, and Fractionating Society, Lack of Control, and helplessness Over Tech’s Addictive Properties are four of the eleven challenges we have identified in how technology impacts anxiety.
Frenetic Task Switching
If asked to picture our minds at their calmest, we may envision a relaxed state after a massage, chilling at the beach, or being lost in nature. Minds in a state of peace or serene focus. Visions in an anxious mind likely include rapid thoughts and a frenetic state. The lyrics of U2’s “Until the End of the World” might play, “In my dream, I was drowning my sorrows, but my sorrows they learned to swim. Surrounding me, going down on me, spilling over the brim.”
Kids' proclivities toward rapid task switching on devices is one of the culprits in the rise of their anxiety and stress. Research shows that the relationship between rapid task switching and anxiety is a two-way street. People task switch when they’re anxious and stressed. In an interview with Dan Pardi, How the Lack of Attention Span Increases Anxiety, researcher Gloria Mark notes that rapid task switching itself causes and exacerbates stress, resulting in physiological symptoms such as raised blood pressure.
Researchers Yeykelis, Cummings, and Reeves studied how often students switched tabs on devices in 2014. “Results showed that switches occurred every 19 seconds.” Gloria Mark has observed that task-switching frequency is on the rise as our world gets busier and busier. The frenetic activity in kids' brains is likely at a fever pitch.
Daniel Levitan explains when we multitask, we “fractionate our attention into little bits and pieces, not really fully engaging in any one thing.” We deplete our brains' energy and erode the neurochemicals we need for focus. Levitan also shares “Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstress your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking.” He also explains that “multitasking creates a dopamine-addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and constantly searching for external stimulation…It is the ultimate empty-calorie brain candy. Instead of reaping the big rewards which come from sustained, focused effort, we instead reap empty rewards from completing a thousand little sugarcoated tasks.” He adds constantly checking social media, email, the news, and Twitter can “constitute a neural addiction.”
A Rise in Individualization and Fractionating Society
Individuality creates a stronger attachment to personal feelings as a sense of duty to the group wanes. Fewer feelings of self-doubt surface when we are a piece of a bigger entity -groups blunt the impact of stress.
Friends used to watch the same shows at the same time sparking animated discussions the next day at the water cooler, at recess, or in the student union. Today we have thousands of friends and feel less connection. The staggering number of shows, movies, podcasts, YouTube videos, and games available on demand has changed when, where, and what kids watch, limiting communal discussion opportunities. The world is fractionating further and further, and technology shoulders much of the blame.
Technology has sowed more division than unions. Jonathan Haidt’s Atlantic article, “Why the Past Ten Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid” is enlightening and has been deemed ‘required reading’ by political and tech experts. Political and social polarization further alienate people, begetting individuation and loneliness. Fake news, bots, and deep fakes sow division and leave people wondering where reality begins and misinformation ends. This makes our minds uncomfortable.
Lack of Control
Technology sneakily snatches autonomy and a sense of control over our lives. Our brains like the accomplishment and autonomy that come with turning a page, checking things off a physical list, and knowing where we are and where we're going on a physical map. Studies show our brains will absorb, comprehend, and retain information better from physical books, notebooks, planners, and more. Google Maps helps us avoid real-time traffic, but ceding mental knowledge and problem-solving to machines inadvertently diminishes well-being. The future of AI will continue to throw our autonomy out of whack. We surrender control of memory, attention, focus, interpersonal connection opportunities, and navigational competence to devices.
A Sense of Hopelessness Over Its Addictive Properties
Every addict suffers breakdowns in mental well-being when the addictive substance controls them. Much of modern technology’s apps, games, devices, and media outlets have been manipulated by behavioral psychologists to keep our attention. Technology’s addictive properties are challenging for many adults and wreak havoc on interpersonal relationships. Kids who haven’t experienced life before modern technology may not realize the power of its addictive properties.
Addiction, anxiety, and depression are inextricably linked. Addiction ramps up anxiety and depression, and anxiety and depression begets addiction. Technology addiction creates patterns of choosing what feels good in the moment over better choices for the long term. Excessive dopamine from technology triggers cortisol production, releasing stress hormones. The dopamine overload kids get from modern technology promotes and exacerbates impulse control challenges.
See “How Does Tech Impact Anxiety, Stress, and Depression” Part IV on how technology Lowers Barriers to Cheating and challenges Empathy, and Distress Tolerance to impact anxiety. We cannot reverse course on the advancement of technology, but Whyfully will offer ideas to help families chart the waters to lessen the impact of technology storms.