Addiction

Wow.  An experiment was done on addiction.  Not the classic drug addiction but television addiction.  120 families were offered $500 if they went without tv for a month.  27 accepted.  Five were studied.  They watched between 40 and 70 hours of tv per week.
It would be great to say the results were permanent, but every family went back to the way they were and for some it was even worse than they were.
But while they went without tv for a month, they noticed change.  There was definitely more family time.  The four changes noted were:
Family members were brought closer together; there was more eye-ball contact between parents and children; there was an increase in tolerance between family members; there was greater productivity.
For me tv is not a bad thing.  Like most things it seems it can be good or bad according to my choice.  I remember having a discussion with someone and discouraged them from leaving a tv on all night.  My thinking was I never know what I am giving a home in my house.
There is an ad for a program on now I always put on mute.  Shouting and carrying on are not regulars in our home.  Yet if the ad was all that was heard from a distance, it would seem that was the way we live.
It got me thinking about addictions.  So often I see them as an addiction to a drug and yet anything that is regularly excessive in my life I think can be defined as an addiction.  I find it fascinating in shopping centres watching people with mobile phones.  Most are on them.  Sometimes with a child in tow being completely ignored.
I do like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I know sometimes I do stupid things. The phone thing though seems to be a regular because it is the same every time I visit the shopping centre.  There is no doubt in my mind that mobile phones are great.  It does seem they are now used excessively though.
The point for me it is an addiction.  Others invariably suffer at the hands of my addiction.  The family unit suffered from too much tv.  Others suffer from my excessive looking at my phone.  No doubt others experience it to, but I have been places where it seemed the phone was more important than the time with me (man, surely that would produce a life-long regret!).
As I often say I am big on balance.  I really cannot determine the actions of others when I am not around, but I can determine my own actions.  That is what I am determined to work on.  To me, a negative addiction is anything that controls me rather than me controlling it.  The less of that sort of thing the better, but I know I need help.