Post No. 2: Online Addiction

The other day I was in the fitness center lifting weights. Nearby was a young woman doing squats. The whole time she had her cell phone directly in front of her face intently watching something online while doing perfectly executed squats. This is not a comment on her athletic ability, but on her obvious addiction to whatever it is online that gives her those occasional "kicks" of reinforcement. There are a host of immediate gratification reinforcers built into our online viewing. They don't come all the time but just occasionally. B.F. Skinner, who published the seminal works on behaviorism in the fifties, would be impressed. He found that his birds would peck a spot continuously if they got only occasional food reinforcers. If they were given a pellet of food after each peck, then they would only peck the spot if they were hungry. We should learn from Skinner's birds, only peck at our mobile phones when we really need something, such as to check messages a couple times a day, or to look up something pressing. So don't have your smart phones so accessible so it consumes so many moments of your day. Use it as a tool when you need its capabilities. Be smarter than Skinner's birds.

I'm guilty as everyone else of wasting time on my cell phone. I'm going to give my own advice a try. You do too and let me know your results. I'll publish them anonymously in a future blog.