Students find call of gadgets irresistible

THREE out of four of Singapore's tech-mad youngsters may be just a bit too fond of their electronic gadgets, suffering physically and socially as a result.

In a survey of 600 polytechnic and university students, three-quarters admitted to constantly fiddling with their mobile phones and other electronic gadgets.

Many of the respondents aged 17 to 25 checked their phones or laptops every few seconds, and took those gadgets with them wherever they went.

More than two in five, for instance, took their mobile phones everywhere - including the toilet. And one in 50 respondents admitted to getting chided 'all the time' for ignoring those around them in favour of their gadgets.

Miss Christine Tan, a final-year undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, said her four-man team decided to look into the issue because 'we saw it in ourselves and our peers...where nothing else matters when we are on our gadgets'.

While technology had many proven benefits, like allowing users to work away from the office and increasing productivity, Miss Tan and her team wanted to red-flag what they believed was a rise in the number of young people so compulsively dependent on their gadgets that they suffered negative side effects.

The most obvious were physical pains such as aches in the head, neck and thumbs.

Raffles Hospital clinical director for pain management, Dr Ho Kok Yuen, said he had seen an increase in the number of younger people suffering from chronic pain - a condition earlier seen only in people aged 60 and above.

'Most people who continue using their gadgets do not realise that their usage patterns can have a very serious impact on their physical well-being,' said Dr Ho.

Those with the condition, which is increasingly being referred to as 'gadget over-dependency', may be affected in less obvious ways as well.

According to a New York Times article, those constantly exposed to a deluge of information find themselves unable to focus on tasks at hand, and also face increased stress.

Long-term exposure to a constant diet of text messages, Facebook updates and Twitter posts, say neuroscientists in the Times report, can 'rewire' human brains to the point that key areas such as analytical ability and creativity might potentially be impaired.

Compulsive usage, said psychologist Nicholas Lim, also 'robs you of the ability to know what controls you and what you control'.

This has the ring of familiarity for private school student Lynn Lim, 22.

'A few years ago, I was at an interview for a part-time job, and there was an alert on my phone. I took it out, checked the message and replied because that is what I always do. When I looked up, the look on the interviewer's face was priceless... No, I didn't get the job.

From ST