At the lesson, we discussed a very interesting topic about mobile phones today.
Talking of me I would be able to live without a mobile phone because I usually use it for making calls (not so often) and some applications. I don't spend time on social networks or something. I use Facebook so as to talk to my cousins time to time but I do that using my laptop.
Applications that I usually use - eReader Prestigio, Google translate, WhatsApp. What apps do you have that you use a lot?
Do you agree that nowadays 'without a mobile phone, you don't exist'?
Bogdan. you said you could be able to live without a mobile phone, but I think it was just a typo and you forgot to include the „not.“
It‘s regrettable but probably true. But as an older guy, who will be 60 in about 3 weeks, I can assure you life was not only only not so bad, but I think better without mobile phones or the internet. I had to keep up with the technology, but did so slowly and reluctantly. So, of course, I use computers and iPhones and iPads too, an apps. But, I’m happy to be in the minority on this view still, but I think we we were actually better off without the internet back in the 70s and 80s. Life was simplier. If you wanted to call someone you didn‘t have to make the call waiting in line at a supermarket to buy something, but you exerisd patience and waited till you got to a pay phone. Or went home. It wasnt hard to do. We lived in the real world, not a fantasyland of make-believe „friends“ on facebook and social apps. If you wanted a book you didn‘t go on Amazon but you drove to a bookstore, held the book in your hand, and decided if you wanted to buy it. You dated by meeting real people in person by going out to a club or social event. You learned a langauge sitting in a University classrom with a teacher standing there, not on Skype. And there was way more privacy. Maybe its just a hankering for the past and a day gone by that we all experience as we all get older, but speaking from experiece, it wasn‘t half as bad as people think. Better in fact,.
I read that internet addiction is treated similarly to eating addiction, where the patient's goal is to achieve a stable amount of food consumption and self control but not to completely stop eating.
Unlike something like alcohol addiction, where the patient's goal is to stop entirely.
It is due to the fact that as Bogdan said:"If you don't have a phone, you don't exist".
So doctors cannot encourage internet addicts to "kill" off their online life, because it can be highly damaging for their social life.
But they can and do encourage everyone to avoid the types of harmful sites that can cause addiction.
Thank you Bogdan for starting such an intriguing discussion. :)
