Understanding Technology, How It Affects Us and What We Can Do About It
[Music] thank you [Music] uh good afternoon everyone my name is Roya rahimi I am the young adult librarian here at Los Angeles Public Library at West Valley Regional branch in Reseda I'm very thrilled to have our third mental health Series in collaboration with L.A County Psychological Association and our today topic is understanding technology how it affects us and what we can do about it I'm very honored to introduce our guest speaker Dr Dustin Wiseman Dr Weissman is a licensed clinical psychologist he treats people struggling with problematic internet use digital addiction such as gaming addiction social media addiction smartophone and porn addiction men's issues anxiety live Transitions and mood disorders Dr Dr Weisman also speaks professionally on internet addiction related topics and thank you everyone for joining us today uh here on live stream at our YouTube channel in lapl um I would like just to mention that you may uh um chat live here and put your questions in the live chat if you have any questions and at the end if we have enough time Dr Wiseman will go over them and answer them thank you thank you doctor yes thank you Roya for the introduction I'm very happy to be here thank you to the LA Public Library and to LA County Psychological Association for putting this all together I loved speaking on this topic um I'm also a member uh the chair of division six of CPA California Association which is division media technology so this is a topic that's very near and dear to my heart and I'm thrilled to share what I've learned with you uh so I have some slides in to go through and I know time is limited so I might go a little fast on them but please feel free to uh like really said any questions you have in the chat box and I will try to get to them so my first question is by my only question actually is going to be what happens when you unplug a mobile device now imagine you're actually in the room with me I can talk to you and hear your responses and I'll I'll say yeah no okay uh-huh you're saying your answer I hear you but I can't so the the answer is nothing nothing happens when you unplug a mobile device you know Old School Technology it was always plug in the wall video game consoles TV whatever it was we got our power source from the wall you take it out it's off you know a father can come in the room say you're watching too much TV pull out the plug TV's off that doesn't work anymore uh you're on a device too long you pull out the plug it has 68 charge left well that didn't do anything so it's definitely a new and different world for using technology uh so the term of unplugging doesn't really apply anymore it's more uh disconnecting you know and I love this quote from Kimberly Young who's considered the mother of internet addiction of Disconnect to reconnect so when we think about how we're spending our time online and we have social media smartphones email instant messaging video streaming online gambling online gaming pornography there's a lot of different ways that people engage in the internet so when we're looking at just social media we'll pull that one for a second there's five distinct ways that we engage with social media it's a big one it's really relevant so one is we broadcast ourselves we we show what we want to the world a very filtered view of what we want so typically we're snipping you know just the highlights and that's what we're seeing when you're engaging with social media as wow these are these are uh these people are doing great why is my life so crappy but that's not the case it's this snippet is great you're seeing the highs not the lows and not really the in between so it's important to keep that in mind uh another action with social media engagement is receiving feedback from those posts so there was a time and kids are probably still doing this where they post something and it doesn't get enough feedback comments or likes then they would take the post down because they didn't deem it worthwhile good enough it wasn't High Enough of a high to post and if they had to pull it down it felt pretty bad about it like oh no one likes me or I'm unlovable because people aren't loving my posts there's a lot of association with the response to a post and their own self-worth uh social media platforms have adjusted this a little bit by filtering lights so you don't get to see as many likes as they really are you only get to see a snippet of them another one is observing just the casual scrolling through technology through social media feeds and seeing what people are posting uh known as the engagement providing feedback to others so commenting on somebody's liking somebody's uh posts reacting to it in some way and the last one is comparing ourselves you know what what we're experiencing with what they're experiencing it's like oh wow they look so great but they had to go through five filters to look that great sometimes so one thing that's really important to take into consideration with mobile devices and this research is actually Now features dated but I think it was about 2018 that one almost one out of two 45 of kids are reporting teenagers in America or reporting that they're online almost constantly which means that they're online during class now covid time they were online for class but this is pre-covered time and I think we're getting back into that direction of you know most schools are now in person again so if you're considering that you have a class of 40 students that maybe 18 of those students are online almost constantly through that class it's going to affect their learning and their engagement with their teachers and everything so yeah moving on uh you can say a little sedwig now to online gaming so what are some of the motivations that people play video games well there's four four basic motivations first one is curiosity astonishment and interest uh you really get to experience a dynamic environment you get cognitive stimulation that's the second one enjoyment of a different lifestyle or even a different environment so this environment here is a woman in a dress on a moon of Saturn like you don't get to experience that in real life but in a game you can and the last one is recreational refreshment this is a very popular reason that a lot of kids play I think an ad for social factors that's probably one of the more I I'd add a fifth now this is from research but if I was gonna do it I'd add a fifth of social interaction because that's how a lot of kids communicate and engage with each other now especially since the pandemic uh people have been a lot more online and they've gravitated and kept with those factors okay so why do people play video games well one is just to gain control over their environment and this is something that you can pay attention to if you're you're in an environment that is chaotic and you're not much control basically every teenager everywhere they don't have control of their environment so they go to one where they do have control and that gives them a sense of power and because of that they like being there and they'll spend more time there because it works within the parameters another reason is that you see probably a high amount of people who are autistic Spectrum Disorder or who have ADHD is because it works within the confines of their you know the way they they work cognitively so with ASD they love to have rules and follow rules and games have a lot of rules and parameters involved whereas the real world too many options and it can be overstimulating ADHD is more engaged because there's just so much cognitive stimulation as I mentioned earlier uh another reason why people play video games is to vicariously experience uh something that can only be previously imagined so if we go back actually to you know this you can't you can't live this you can experience it online but this isn't something that you would normally think of like yeah I'm gonna throw on a wedding dress and walk across the moon you know Baron Wasteland on take a view of Saturn while I'm doing it that's not something we can just do but we can vicariously experience it all these amazing environments that are created by our software Engineers up and down the state uh we have that opportunity with video games uh another one is the competitive component people love competition so we have Esports you know people get to engage in competition against others and if they do really well well then they can broadcast themselves on YouTube or they can be broadcast on ESPN for one of those late night Esports gaming competitions they can go to Arenas that are sold out and filled with people watching Esports competitions they can win money they can be on teams there's a lot involved in this it's it's a very real thing you can also vicariously live somewhere else like a moon of Saturn or even in another time you know maybe you want to go to a Medieval era or an Egyptian era you can do that or the future uh the last one is just to safely explore fantasy relationships or even regular relationships this gives opportunity to everybody that they can go out and without worrying about what people are going to think of me is what I'm going to think of the Persona I present through this Avatar and if they don't like it I can just ghost them which basically means shutting off all communication and move on so looking at the reward system what keeps people engaged into video games well there's one very strong one right off the bat is Quest completion and leveling up and you level up by usually gaining experience so in this we have a scene depicted where a person is leveling up everybody's around clapping and cheering on congratulations you leveled up and when this happens we have a huge flow of dopamine we feel really good and we want to do it again in the first few levels it's really quick easy level UPS takes minutes sometimes get to level 10. depending on the game and once we go beyond that it gets a little harder because if we kept it super easy well our satiation wouldn't really last and we'll get to that a little bit later what other aspects of leveling up in these games you have the graphics reinforcement you have the color the sound you know sometimes there's a blaring trumpet just announcing and there's a lot of stimulation and because of that your brain is really engaged and lighting up also there's a sense of feeling more powerful the stronger you get in game the more powerful you feel again we go back to environments where people are coming from a place of not having much power maybe getting bullied in school and resorting to video games because you feel good and strong there because you can do well at it and it's not limited to teenagers adults play games and feel good too maybe you're in a job that you aren't really doing well at or you have a boss that just keeps putting you down but in a video game you can do really well or be a guild leader and have a team underneath you all right so and galanot did really amazing study and this is actually a picture from their study this was back in 2014 they looked at reigns with fmris come from uh uh and with that they found that excessive games over a long period of time you know the people that had 30 Years of Gaming experience that it actually helped the brain in terms of what uh if they're playing logic based games and puzzle games they would strengthen certain areas of the brain however the gains that were more focused on action and role-playing those contributed negatively to our brain development of course that's what I like to play so I was disappointed to learn that but uh there's also some other negative contributions from excessive gaming that can affect memory navigation uh and perception of time which is really perceived in the prefrontal cortex specifically the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and when that part gets inhibited from excessive game use it kind of goes with the old edge of time flies when you're having fun but if you do it too much and you damage that part of your brain then you really can have a warped perception of time especially while you're gaming so when somebody is gaming and it's been two hours and they say you tell it's time to get off they feel like they just started and it doesn't regulate the same way five minutes all right get off in five minutes five minutes passes they don't feel it it seems like only two seconds had passed so it's good to be aware of that if you're interacting with somebody who is gaming too long that they don't perceive it that way because that part of their brain regulates time in a different way at least when they're engaged in the activity uh there's another study that's been going on I think it's in its fourth or fourth to sixth year when they're uh it's called the ABCD studies through the National Institute of Health and there's they give me a 10 year longitudinal study following following 10 or actually now about 11 000 participants and they had an early finding that was released I don't think I have a slide of it I think it's just here but in this finding they found that those who spent more than two hours a day on uh screens just in general screens lowered their scored lower on their thinking and language tests but brain scans of who spent seven or more hours using Electronics devices uh day shows a premature thinning of their prefrontal of their cortex not their preview just the whole cortex so that does happen normally as we age our cortex does thin but not that early so they weren't able to say this is a good or a bad thing perhaps we're evolving faster my suspicion is that it's probably not a good thing we probably want that to thin later in life so I'm not sure the verdict's not out yet on that one there have been some more uh updates on the studies but I'm just gonna leave it at that and those are the main findings that I found that I wanted to share today all right Okay so internet addiction okay everybody's always wondering what's involved the internet addiction well internet addiction is basically six main factors the first one is salience so that's when our activity becomes the most important part of our life you gotta have it you make the the big important thing I have to do this I have to game I've got free time I'm gonna game or I've got free time I'm gonna shop online I'm gonna use porn I'm gonna do some gambling whatever the device is that's when we that's the first sign that we see okay there's probably a problem forming here another one is mood change and that's how the person experiences the activity through uh ongoing involvement and the third one is tolerance which you're probably familiar with you know building a tolerance to something the more you use it the more uh tolerance you have so you don't have the same desired effect we have that with medication with drugs uh basically requires Progressive lengths of time to get that same level of dopamine release in the brain the fourth is withdrawal so when you're not getting enough that you have that um detriment or perceived detriment when you're not meeting the desired requirement the fifth one is conflict this is going to be an intraer or intra personal conflict and it can be caused by a continual application of the activity so you can see this most apparent in arguments with family or teachers or friends or withdrawing from family teachers or friends not engaging in life and you start to see causing problems in other areas and the last one is relapse you know we're familiar with relapse with you know a a and uh n a that's the act of reengaging in an activity in an addictive activity after demonstrating control over it so it's understandable expected and common so this is from a study that found oh it was a 76 college students in the study 50 were female 50 male uh the mean age was 18.9 so almost 19 years old and they were denied access to food for three um three hours as well as denied access to their smartphones and after the modest deprivation period they were offered either a hundred calorie portion of their carrot snack or of their food so they found that more of the participants preferred to have the smartphone than their food so a sense that's why I highlighted smartphones were more reinforcing than food it kind of States a lot of well yeah what's the priority for our youth okay so the New York Times came out with this article and this is a study that found an association between uh increased screen-based media and compared with the AAP guidelines that there was a lower microstructural Integrity of the brain where white matter tracks supporting language uh and emergent literacy skills in pre-k children were not as strong so essentially yeah we had a negative association between screen time and white matter tracks now white matter is extremely important for our functional activity in our brain that's the myelin it's the insulation our FiOS how strong how quick our signals can get through the brain so if they are thinning or weaker or just not as fast then we're not going to be as quick what we perceived as slower in our response time which can then present as what ADHD so it is possible that ADHD is something that might be more of a symptom or a result of excessive screen time and we're seeing kids using screens as young as babies uh on that note my recommendation is no screen time before age three and if you are gonna have screen time limit it to FaceTime with Grandma you know FaceTime video like this video calls are fine but beyond that you really want to limit it I know there's a lot of programming for kids that I'm not as worried about with TV especially if they have good messages and music and you're stimulating other things but in terms of giving them smartphones that is something I would try to avoid at all costs uh so any any expecting parents out there if you know of any expecting parents or yeah of course I found this out when my younger child turned three it's like ah what it finds out now I couldn't find this about three years ago uh so so take it for what it's worth okay Netflix had this interesting tweet a while back in 2017 saying sleep is my greatest enemy this is from the CEO of Netflix and well Netflix is really good at keeping people awake longer than they intended the problem is that we can experience sleep deprivation and with sleep deprivation we have neurological effects one of those is decreased task related activity another one is diminish activity in visual spatial attention tasks another is difficulty focusing especially with distractions and the last one I have is that impairs the capacity to to sustain attention over time so you know it's really important that we get a good sleep if you ever have gone a day without sleep then you know how fuzzy your brain feels I did this once when I a few years back I went to Virginia to present and I noticed it because I had taken a red eye and I just figured I'll jump on their time zone when I got there thank goodness I wasn't presenting that day because my brain was not sharp but once I had a good night's sleep I was back on it so something you can come back from but if kids aren't getting good night's sleep and they're staying up late on the devices which is called vamping then they're not going to go in school or adults staying up late watching TV streaming on social media then the next day it might affect your work so the recommendation here is to put your phone on a charger don't look at it for an hour before you go to sleep also on that note if you struggle sleep don't use any social or don't use any devices in bed just train your brain that when your head hits that pillow you're not doing anything else if you're gonna do something else do it outside of the bed okay so I added some of these recently these are my new additions uh cryptocurrency addiction because I figured why not and we're seeing a lot of people struggling with this so I'm just gonna go to these kind of quickly but I think it's relevant and important to talk about because there's a lot of people who are struggling with tying their mental well-being into the crypto market so as it goes up they feel great as it goes down they're not so great uh so we'll see just like any addiction that people will have this pathological compulsion or obsession over it if you've been around anybody who's invested in crypto especially when it's doing well it's all they talk about and when it's not doing so well hey you haven't talked about crypto in a while yeah don't give me I don't want to be gonna do it uh bring up nfts and they'll really get upset uh but we'll see the addiction when they're still doing this trading of cryptocurrency despite having a lot of negative consequences so still pouring money into it hoping that all right it's gonna it's gonna shoot up it's basically gambling at that point not in general because a lot of people myself included will invest money in a cryptocurrency hoping that it goes up just like any investment but the ones who are doing it more trading and seeing the negative results and still just kind of hoping hoping hoping uh when it becomes too much that's when we see it to be problematic so there's some signs of cryptocurrency addiction I just want to throw in here so we have unsuccessful attempts at stopping thinking about the cryptocurrency and you could change cryptocurrency with any other Vice whether it's an internet related device or not device oh yeah device or alcohol or drugs whatever it might be so these are signs of addiction uh thinking about it constantly feeling guilty shameful or regretful spending more time or money on it hiding losses from loved ones lying stealing or selling assets as well as borrowing from people knowing that you can't repay them or hoping that oh I could do as well if it as well in the future then I can repay you then uh spending money on cryptocurrency instead of responsibilities like food and bills jeopardizing relationships careers or educational opportunities difficulty concentrating on important activities so in mind just so focused on that task whatever the device is in this case kryptos and not focus on that project that's supposed to be done loss of interest in non-related crypto activities and difficulty relaxing or sleeping due to cryptocurrency uh okay segwaying into cyber bullying so I mentioned there were more results from the ABCD study so I did find this one so in this they found out of the eleven thousand ten thousand four and fourteen were for part of this ever bullying aspect of it and so we had 7.6 reported that they had experienced suicidal thoughts or acts that's a lot in a classroom of well if we had it was a big class of 100 we'd have 7.6 people but if we're looking at a classroom of 50 we have three or a classroom of 25 we have one or two so if you're thinking that you're looking at a classroom of students and there's one or two kids in there who are actively having suicidal thoughts that's that's a lot uh 8.9 reported being targets of cyber
bullying and point nine actually almost one percent actually reported they were the Cyber bullies cyber bullying other people which a lot of times we don't recognize that when we're doing it to others okay so I came up with nine tips to reduce Time online I have a little video but uh that's not gonna play so I didn't bother so here they are uh find ways to interact with loved ones without technology you can do that with reading a tangible book uh explore nature soak up some sun even 15 minutes will really help learn something new I'm always talking with my patients about finding new hobbies whether it's discovering old ones again or finding new ones meditation is fantastic there's a free app called insight timer has over a hundred thousand free meditations unless they've started charging uh if you can do five to fifteen minutes of meditation I prefer the guided meditation a day you'll really see strong and helpful results setting and working towards achievable goals now the key word here is achievable has to be something that's within reason now if you say oh I'm meaning that my college education no okay well that's not really a short-term achievable so perhaps I'm gonna go enroll in college will be something better or apply for college uh track your time online that's a good way to keep mindfulness around how much use you're having engage in sports and other outdoor activities it's really really important to be involved in something physical if you're able to if you're not able to then perhaps finding some other means perhaps which could be chess in the park or something along those lines maybe swimming whatever it might be so in I mentioned Dr Kimberly Young she had a book called caught in the net and she had these strategies for a really healthy internet use so this isn't necessarily avoiding it but this is when we're using it to be healthy about using it so I want to stick to a schedule and for a lot of my patients I recommend a certain time limit I don't say okay do it from this time this time but I'll recommend okay we're going for two hours a day to three hours a day so that means that you don't start a new activity after that two hour mark and then you just get off I like to give that buffer of time rather than saying it's been two hours you have to get off no it's been an hour and 59 minutes go ahead start a new game watch a new episode but ah it's been two hours and one minute don't start something new just log off acknowledge change there's something you can do with yourself as well as with others is really to pay attention to any kind of efforts that have been made for positive change so if you see somebody ripping the effort give them that feedback the positive feedback or give yourself positive feedback if you're aware that well I've done a really good job looking at my screen time that I've decreased it monitor fees a lot of different platforms whether it's a gaming platform or a streaming platform or online shopping uh they have fees so pay attention how much you're spending so I guess with shopping also spending not just fees and fourth one maintain school work performance so if you see that your performance starts to slip then that's when you want to pull back on the screen time and really get back invested in you know getting your grades or your projects completed for school or work uh ReDiscover Hobbies as I mentioned before increase in real life interactions go out see people hang out in real life you can't give a high five to someone online but you can in person so I really encourage people to spend time with others in person it's really helpful especially now it's been more vaccinated it's a little healthier to go out maybe not currently in this wave of covid we have at this moment or not depends on where you are it depends on what time you're watching this video if you're live streaming with me or if you're watching it later but you know if you can spend some time in person with people especially if you can do outside and playing a sport that's a three for one win-win-win uh empathize with others Tech use you see somebody struggling with their Time online a good one that bring that comes to mind for me with this is I see my patients who have their friends they're gaming with online and I'll suggest well go do something with them in person now a lot of time they've met friends online who don't live nearby so that does make it challenging but you can get creative perhaps in the video call while you guys are doing something together outside uh like juggling soccer balls for example uh be aware of The Temptations oftentimes there's a lot of triggers perhaps you're just walking around and see people on their phones that's a trigger uh maybe you hear a certain jingle that's a trigger uh maybe you see someone that reminds you of something that could be a triggers being aware of those things and that that temptation is there and that's okay but how to respond to it spending time uh with loved ones kind of goes hand in hand with the increasing real life interactions and then self-reflection and being mindful of progress made okay now I've been talking a little bit more skewed towards Technologies not being great but no technology use is also bad we want some technologies so it's not all that uh it's actually helpful in a very connected online world to be involved in the internet to be involved in technology we want to because that's where the world is that's where we're at right now in our society and uh in this study they talk about the Goldilocks effects or Goldilocks effect showing that moderate use of Technology about one to two hours per day in weekdays and slightly more on the weekends was not intrinsically harmful but it could actually be helpful so I want to make sure that my presentations and what I'm talking about does not come across as Technologies as bad Technologies is good it Fosters a lot of great things like me talking to you right now so we want to use technology we just want to do it like everything else in life in balance and moderation so I have some recommended readings here and the first one is igen by Gene twangy or twangy uh she wrote a very popular article in the Atlantic talking about screen time the book agent I love it covers different generational differences and how the 2011 when iPhones became Mass owned they came out in 2007 but by 2011 that's when a lot of people had them and that's when we saw a huge change in how people were doing uh homicide rates went way down but suicide rates went up so stop hurting each other and started hurting yourselves depression went up anxiety went up cyber bullying obviously went up uh there's a lot of problems that started happening around that time uh but other things some other stuff was delayed kids started driving later uh like I said less violence but also less drug use so people were being healthier more conscious for their own physical health but not as much as mental health uh irresistible I used to say is a book that if I was gonna write a book it would be very similar to that one I really really love the way Adam also put it together caught in the net I referenced here briefly by Dr Kimberly Young Ready Player one I threw in there because I just love it and it kind of covers how the world could be in the future if you know we're all connected on VR and Technology does progress the way that meta wants it to progress um so that one's more of a fun one uh the r screen time by Anya minutes I like that one because she approaches it with a journalistic perspective so she's not really coming from the psychological educational was in there because she did her job as a researcher but or as a journalist but she really comes across from a different angle which I found refreshing uh and then here's some more at the craving mind raising human beings uh the organized mind and unselfie so these are all also very good books and then another resource I did 19 episodes on a podcast cyber sense power podcast available for free so if you like some stuff that you heard these most of them involve uh interviews with uh people or halfmers are interviews people half or more article so I'll find an article and I'll discuss it so you're more than welcome to seek that out for free you can find it on any uh platform that does podcasts Apple iTunes Google podcasts um Spotify and Stitcher breaker uh episode two which I mentioned here is actually me interviewing my daughter when she was six on what it was like for her to have screen time limits so that was a really interesting one it's a fun one fun for me to do okay uh I zipped through that super fast so that we have plenty of time for questions so feel free to post any questions that you might have in the chat box and I'm gonna see if I skipped over anything that I want to go back to foreign due to overuse of digital Tech did um I cannot pronounce his name uh and they register and Report oh that's a tricky one you're asking me to to I gave the highlights on on that article but they didn't really cover that that was not the aim of their article the article was talking about the um the good things what's helpful for Tech use because there's a lot of literature out there on overuse of technology in the detrimental effects their goal was to showcase the positive effects of screen news in the screen time so I don't think there would be anything negative in that particular article anybody have any other questions you can just put them right there in the chat box um okay let's see I'm gonna talk about nomophobia um anything more specific with it or um all right and the other new day phobia is really Tech okay so yeah like fomo and so forth so no phobia nomophobias yeah just I believe the fear of being disconnected and not with your phone and we have fomo which is fear of missing out um not sure what other ones come to mind in terms of modern day phobias with regards to cell phones and technology but those two go hand in hand and I'm not sure exactly what you want me to address with them so yeah I think we are very attached to our devices and to the point where we're used to them being in our pockets and you can have the Phantom vibrations because your your body is conditioned classically conditioned to feel the vibration and it will react before there's even a buzz but without it then yeah we can definitely feel detached and raise our anxiety because again the fear of missing out whether it's related to work or social or just something that happens a lot of news um the news will have a lot of the scary things in it and if you feel like you missed out on it or you're not currently up to date if something bad is going on then you might feel in danger which rationally we know we're not but irrationally we react to it thank you so much oh there's another question yeah do you consider online creative work to be part of the two hour day limit my son does a lot of graphics no if you're doing if he's doing graphic design for two hours a day or as part of that I wouldn't consider it I think for the two hours you're looking more at something that's highly engaging uh like social media gaming pornography gambling something that's a lot more interactive uh with online community uh video streaming and TV watching in this case graphic design I put a much lower level of screen technology engagement uh not all screen time is created equal because our brain's not going to react to it in the same way any other questions thank you thank you so much for your wonderful presentation it was very educational and eye-opening for I'm sure a lot of us I'm sure also so many of us uh relate to this in one level or another and thank you for covering a lot of uh areas in technology Addiction in a very short limited time and thank you for your time I'm sure everybody benefits from your talk and please feel free uh everyone who is watching now or is going to watch later the recorded video to share this video with your friends and loved ones so that they can also um benefit from this wonderful presentation thank you and I would like just to mention that um our series will continue and our next topic coping with mass violence uh by Dr Richard espinoza's ID will be on August 16 at 4 pm here on our YouTube channel uh lapl's YouTube channel and thank you again and have a great evening everyone thank you thank you
2022-07-25 02:01
