{"id":65,"date":"2017-03-21T01:50:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T01:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/qpeacock\/?p=65"},"modified":"2017-03-21T05:22:47","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T05:22:47","slug":"pshh-add-so-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/qpeacock\/2017\/03\/21\/pshh-add-so-what\/","title":{"rendered":"PSHH ADD SO WHAT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh sure, we all have ADD, or Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder, they’re just day dreaming, we all day dream. The amount of times I have heard that being someone who has ADD myself, boy I couldn’t tell you. Many people claim that ADD is not an actual disease because everyone has trou<\/span>ble concentrating and paying attention at times. Well with that argument than the field of psychology is not an actual field of science, that\u2019s a stretch. Psychology is real, ADD is real and it\u2019s becoming a serious issue with the rise of technology use possibly being to blame.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ADHD\"<\/p>\n

How serious is this ADD issue really if everyone has it? Well according to The Centers for Disease Control<\/a> 11% of children have been diagnosed with ADD since 2011 and there has been a 3% increase in ADD diagnoses since 1997 to 2006, making it the most prominent<\/a> mental health disorder in children today. Serious enough for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence that children\u2019s increased use of technology may be leading to the rise in ADD comes from an article by \u00a0<\/span>Lesley Alderman, <\/b><\/a>\u00a0She cites a study published in <\/span>Pediatrics <\/span><\/i>and conducted by <\/span>Dimitri Christakis, MD, in <\/span>that stated of the <\/span>1,323 children ranging from fourth to sixth grade, those who spent more than two hours of screen time a day were 1.6 to 2.1 times more likely to have attention issues. In addition, another one of his studies found that children under the age of 5 who are exposed to more than two hours of screen time are 20% more likely to have attention problems at school. These statistics are daunting enough to see that technology is causing\u00a0attention issues in children, but what about adults?<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, in his article, \u201cIs Google Making Us Stupid?\u201d<\/a> David Carr claims that the over abundance of media stimuli on the internet has resulted in a new reading style called skimming, that has diminished one\u2019s attention span.\u00a0<\/span>Carr claims that skimming has diminished one\u2019s attention because he used to be able to read lengthy novels without getting distracted but now he is limited to two to three pages. Skimming is basically defined that the internet has so much different stimuli that one mostly reads for key words, bouncing from source to source, rarely revisiting any one source twice. Carr believes that this skimming allows humans to retain only enough information to recall the source later in a Google search. Being able to Google the rest of the information by typing in only a few relevant words is what Carr claims to be causing his attention problems.\u00a0I see this attention phenomenon resulting\u00a0from the internet and technology using what psychologists like to call classical and operant conditioning, to cause humans to develop attention problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now watch these two videos of popular TV shows The Office and The Big Bang Theory as to how the characters are able to condition their peers into behaving in a certain way.<\/p>\n