Professor warns of growing digital addiction.
It’s not quite the Shakespearian warning to stay clear of the Ides of March, yet Widener University Associate Professor Dwight DeWerth-Pallmeyer makes a case to put down that phone for at least two hours a day ... or beware.
No, no, the academic is not suggesting that a technological Armageddon is imminent.
In fact, he’s admittedly somewhat of a tech addict himself, although he’s been trying to unplug for a dedicated time each day to heed his own advice.
“The evidence from research around the world is universal,” the associate professor of communication studies said. “While smartphones may indeed constitute as a necessity in modern life, they come at a cost: Shortened attention spans, less outside activity, depression, anxiety, learning disabilities, poorer interpersonal communication skills and later on, more traffic accidents and automotive fatalities, stress and lowered job performance.”
For two years, DeWerth-Pallmeyer has been studying how Delaware County residents use their cellphones as part of his upcoming 90-minute documentary, “Cellular Aftershocks,” which he anticipates will be released in the spring.
He chose to focus on Delaware County due to its socioeconomic, racial and political diversity and hopes to get viewers to think about their digital usage.
“There really are some down sides that you haven’t thought about,” he said. “It’s really having dramatic impact on the way our brain is working.”
DeWerth-Pallmeyer himself said he understands the allure of technology.
“I grew up in the TV era,” the 60-year-old said. “I was the TV addict of the family.”
His father, Paul Pallmeyer, was a Lutheran minister and required him to attend Advent and Lenten services that occurred on the same day and at the same time as DeWerth-Pallmeyer’s favorite show.
“How could they be as cruel as to hold these services at the same time as ‘Lost in Space?’” the professor joked about what he felt. “It wasn’t fair at all. I thought I was going to be a basket case.” He survived. Yet, DeWerth-Pallmeyer also explained the difference between watching the boob tube and being a slave to the smartphone.
Computers, he said, advance in multiples, where even now computer chips are slightly bigger than atoms.
“It’s not linear,” he said of technological advances. “It’s exponential. With all the great technology, it’s growing so much faster than our brains are. Our brains don’t function as fast as a computer.”
In addition, it encourages addiction.
“Everyone carries a computer in his pocket,” DeWerth-Pallmeyer said. “Every time it vibrates or dings, they get this little dopamine rush that says I need to respond.”
It becomes an addiction when people can’t get one day without it as he gave the example of one of his students whom he offered $10,000 to go without her devices for three days. He said she declined.
For those addicted, DeWerth-Pallmeyer said, “It’s your very identity that’s at stake.”
He shared some descriptions he portrays in his film.
“On person refers to it as his vocal chord,” DeWerth-Pallmeyer said. “Another person calls it his extra son.”
It can divide marriages as couples spend time looking at their phones in bed, rather than each other.
“Usually one member gets upset because the person is constantly on the device,” he said. “Our new lover is what’s in our hand.”
The dependency extrapolates into other areas of life — even his classroom.
“The idea is, ‘I can find any answer I need, why should I learn anything?’” he said.
De We rt h-P all meyer agreed there is a broader stretch of knowledge now because of access to information, but critical thinking is being lost in the process.
“I think we know a little bit about everything now, but it’s an inch deep,” he said. “What you’re missing is the depth of thought. There’s a lack of self-reflection that goes on. There’s a big difference between my nine-word tweet and my sitting down in a room and talking with you.”
He shared that he and his wife met 24 years ago this month on a subway in Chicago. He sat down next to her and started a conversation about a book she was reading.
“I don’t know that that would happen online,” he said.
In addition, DeWerth-Pallmeyer said he’s noticed students are averse to making eye contact.
“They come to me for a problem,” he said, “they’re sitting in the middle of talking to me texting. They don’t even understand that that’s rude.”
He said they see it as multi-tasking, not as a matter of politeness.
The professor added, however, “The research shows repeatedly that we don’t multi-task. The human brain doesn’t multitask. We’re reducing the quality of each of those activities.”
For instance, he pointed to texting and driving.
“It’s reducing both our texting and our driving,” he said. “Texting and driving is much more dangerous than drunken driving because it takes so muchmore of your cognitive skills.”
He said as computers continue to advance and humans’ dependency grows on them while the wedge in our connection with each other expands, we will be forced to reinvent ourselves as human beings.
“The whole essence of humanity is thinking and reacting and interacting with people,” DeWerth-Pallmeyer said. “That’s all being robbed from us if we become so dependent on this device that we avoid those activities.”