Frankie Tagliaferri Mrs. Manos English IV 30 March 2017 Our new addiction An addiction is the condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. It’s not being able to live a day without it, craving it, and giving into its desires. Today’s addiction, is technology. Young people, on average, spend 6 1/2 hours a day on their cell phones, computers, or other devices, not including school work. That’s about 45 hours a week and 99 days every year that children spend time on technology. A few years ago, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram were words that had absolutely no meaning. Sadly, today they have developed into words that mean everything. The use of technology and social media has become the norm in …show more content…
It is called the social learning theory, understanding through observation from a model figure. Social media and technology alters this theory for us, decreasing our ability to think and focus. Bandura performed his bobo doll experiment to prove his theory of observational learning by imitating a model figure. Kid’s observed an adult act violent with the bobo doll, punching and kicking in anger. When the kids approached the doll, they imitated the violent actions, learning this behavior through the adult. Technology proves this theory too. It has the power to change kids emotions and actions. Violent video games are the biggest example of this. Approximately over 90% of the video games kids play in the U.S. are violent. Studies show that these games can “make kids act more aggressively in their real-world relationships” (Park). Compared to the kids who played fewer hours in a week, the ones who played more hours “revealed increases in aggressive behavior and violent tendencies” (Park). It’s this media violence exposure that’s altering kids brains to see the world in a more aggressive way, with little patience, and more violent outbursts. This increase in aggression stems from the increase of aggressive thinking that leads back to these violent video games kids play which include killing, bombing, shooting, and cursing. The impact these games have on kids moods worries researchers about “how violence in virtual reality might play out in real life”