It is indisputable that many of us spend much of our lives in front of our screens

The text about phone addiction.
The author said that indisputably many of us spend much of our lives in front of
our screens – especially our phones.
The researcher gave an example a college freshman who had the internet
addiction and was just scrolling for hours, not going to sleep and it was the
problem for him.
Most experts do agree that regardless of whether it is a true “addiction” or
something else, too much screen time can have bad effects, especially for kids.
Dr. Michael Rich, a self-described “mediatrician”, co-director of the Clinic for
Interactive Media Disorders said: “Where the problem comes in is when their
day-to-day functions are impaired in some way,”. As for him, he likes to stay
away from the addiction model. Rich also doesn’t think technology is the cause
of his patients’ problems, but rather, it amplifies them.
It is indisputable that many of us spend much of our lives in front of our screens
– especially our phones.
What’s also indisputable is that some of those activities can take us down a
spiraling, time-suck rabbit hole.
In fact, 31% of US adults and 46% of US teens say they are on the internet
“almost constantly,” according to Pew Research Surveys from 2021 and 2022.
How much is too much? Sometimes it’s hard to know. But sometimes, the
answer is much more obvious. It was for Jerome Yankey. He was a college
freshman when he noticed that his use of social media, specifically TikTok, had
become problematic.
“It just kind of started to really wear on me physically first, I think, because that
was when I was just scrolling for hours, not going to sleep – it was taking hours
out of my day. I wasn’t really doing much else in my free time,” he explained.
When the toll shifted from physical to mental, quashing his creativity and
warping his sense of worth, he decided he needed to quit. And he did it cold
turkey – no easy feat.
Yankey is far from alone. The 2022 Pew Research Survey of US teens found
that 67% of them use TikTok, and among those, 16% use it “almost
constantly.” That number is even higher among the 95% of teens who use
YouTube, with 19% using it “almost constantly.”
Am I addicted?
For now, internet addiction is not an official clinical diagnosis. There are still a
lot of questions about whether it qualifies as a mental health disorder on its own
or whether it should be considered part of another mental health condition. There
are also questions about how to define it, measure it, test it and treat it.
Most experts do agree, though, that regardless of whether it is a true “addiction”
or something else, too much screen time can have bad effects, especially for
kids.
That’s where Dr. Michael Rich comes in. A self-described “mediatrician,” Rich
treats young patients with what he calls problematic media use at the Clinic for
Interactive Media Disorders (which he co-directs) at Boston Children’s
Hospital.
“Where the problem comes in is when their day-to-day functions are impaired
in some way,” he said. “They’re not getting enough sleep. They are overeati ng.
They are missing school or falling asleep in school. They are withdrawing from
their friends.”
He likes to stay away from the addiction model.
“We as a society use the term addiction as pejorative. We think of addicts as
weak people with weak character … and we approach addiction, frankly, still as
something to be punished rather than healed,” he said.
Rich also doesn’t think technology is the cause of his patients’ problems, but
rather, it amplifies them. And he has a counterintuitive approach to helpi ng his
young patients, who are often coping with other issues – like anxiety, obsessivecompulsive disorder or just plain old stress. Listen to how they learn how to
wean themselves off their devices and adopt a healthier relationship with their
electronics.