On Addiction Education

Should addiction education be made part of the standard American school curriculum? I think our current generation is under-educated on the subject. This is unfortunate, because I also think the large majority of the current generation will face some form of addiction in their lives, even if some of their addictions aren't particularly serious. But our current educational system is all about prevention. They tell us “Don't touch these addictive things, they'll mess your life up.” What they don't do so well is tell us what it's like to be addicted to something, or how to try and get out of it. It's rather naive to assume that these are skills children won't need; on the contrary, modern technology is making it easier and easier to access whatever the subject of our addictions may be. If we don't do a better job of teaching our children how to deal with it, we run the risk of creating a future society seriously crippled by the chains of addiction.

Addicted or Passionate?

What is the difference between passion and addiction? One of the reasons that geeks tend to get defensive when confronted with the topic of technology addiction is likely that the two aren't so different after all. To identify as a geek is to proclaim a passion for technology. But both passion and addiction involve a very strong desire to return repeatedly to a specific type of activity, to the point of being willing to overcome significant obstacles to achieve the goals of those activities. Arguably, the strongest passions, belonging to the greatest inventors and creators of history, could also be classified as addictions. Cautions against addiction, then, are admonitions to maintain balance in our lives: but the line of where that balance should be drawn varies drastically, depending on who you ask. Therefore, to make progress against technology addiction, we're going to need a clearer line.