Topic Proposal

Samantha Ramirez

When Technology Becomes an Addiction

In today’s society half of the things we do revolve around technology. So many people are dependent on getting updated via email or text messages, also getting the weather or the news from the internet. Another thing we use technology for is to keep in touch with people. There are thousands of websites that are available to anyone who owns a computer or cell phone. All these things harbor the potential for many forms of addiction. The perfect subtopic to technology addictions would be texting.

What is texting? Short message service is means of communications without having to physically talk to a person. One doesn’t often associate texting with being an addiction because society has its own ideas of what “addictions” are. Yet we label an addiction as a state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma. That definition describes in words exactly how addiction texting can be. Many physiologist disagree with the theory that texting can be an addiction say that they could create a dozen new disorders tomorrow doing the exact same thing, but unfortunately it would be no more scientifically valid.

 There are many discourse communities available to help aid in the recovery of this addiction. Such communities would be self help groups or rehabs out that can help people recover or not depend on texting or technology.  People should become more aware of this epidemic. Just like drug or alcohol addictions can be deadly so can texting. So many people die or are in accidents and seriously injured because they are using their cell phones to talk or text.

Hopefully by investigating and reading more into this topic I can find more information that supports texting as an addiction, resulting in more awareness for the public. I hope to bring the severity of this problem to my class and maybe shed light on how to stop texting so frequently. Personally I think this topic is very relatable in the sense that everyone is the class as some sort of addiction to texting. Also being that our city has a law in place that makes texting or using the phone while driving is illegal. Other people might really relate to this topic because they might be directly affected by this. They may know someone or have family members who were either hurt in an accident because they were texting or they could have been the person who cause the accident due to texting.