Cravings, confusion and isolation are the usual withdrawal symptoms faced by drug addicts and alcoholics, but now a new study shows similar feelings are experienced by young people when deprived of their gadgets.
According to the study, teens are likely to feel increasing separation anxiety and distress when separated from mobiles or social networking sites.
Scientists have found that 79 percent of students subjected to a complete media blackout for a day reported adverse reactions, reporting overwhelming cravings similar to the effects felt by cocaine addicts, with one reporting they were “itching like a crackhead”.
The study focused on people aged between 17 and 23 in 10 countries.
In the UK, the study focussed on 150 University students who spent 24 hours banned from using phones, social networking sites, the internet and TV.
Participants were allowed to use landline phones or read books and were asked to keep a diary.
One participant reported: “I am an addict. I don’t need alcohol, cocaine or any other derailing form of social depravity… Media is my drug; without it I was lost.”
Indeed, one in five reported symptoms akin to an addiction with some students taking their mobile phone with them, ‘just to touch them’.
11 percent said they felt like a failure and were confused, and nearly one in five reported feelings of distress.
“I literally didn’t know what to do with myself”, said one student. “Going down to the kitchen to pointlessly look in the cupboards became a regular routine, as did getting a drink.”
A further 11 per cent said they felt isolated, with one saying: “I became bulimic with my media; I starved myself for a full 15 hours and then had a full-on binge,” according to the UK’s Daily Mail.
Only 21 percent of those who took part in the survey said they felt the benefits of being unplugged.
However the research also showed that technology changed relationships ‘absolutely’.
Susan Moeller, lead researcher of the University of Maryland study, said: “When the students did not have their mobile phones and other gadgets, they did report that they did get into more in-depth conversations. Quite a number reported a difference in conversation in terms of quality and depth as a result.”
Moeller said technology provides the social network for young people today, because they have spent their entire lives being ‘plugged in’. She said: “Some said they wanted to go without technology for a while but they could not as they could be ostracised by their friends.”
