Are you are worried about the amount of time that you, your partner, or your child is spending glued to screens? Does your child experience anxiety or irritability when ending an online game? Do you constantly check your emails or social media accounts and feel less connected in your relationships? If you can relate to these experiences, you or your loved ones might be suffering from Technology Addiction. Just like the substance-based addictions, Technology Addiction enslaves our brain’s reward circuitry and can lead to long-term neurological, social, and psychological problems.
A handful of companies are designing technologies with the sole purpose of capturing and commoditizing our attention. Many top US universities are investing heavily in so called “persuasive design” labs, perfecting the psychological tricks that compel us to consume more and more technology. As Tristan Harris, a former Google Executive puts it, “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation we have.” In the age of Social Media, Smartphones, Amazon, and Free-Internet-Pornography, we’re all one gadget or app away from addiction.
I offer workshops, lectures, special events and consulting services on the topic of Technology Addiction.
Click here for a link to events.
I also offer private consultations for families to develop problem solving, address current issues and form their own personal Mission Statement for Technology Use.
TESTIMONIALS
"To begin with, Oz was incredible. He explained complicated things so well and made two hours fly by. I understand not only tech addiction, but other addictions so much better now. But he also didn’t just end it making me feel horrible. I have been to four other similar seminars, this was by far the best one! He let us know what to do, how to make things better, he gave us some real answers. Because he explained it so well it will be much easier to go forward with those answers. My favorite moment of the night was when he said that parents in the room of teenagers right now, and that is me, had no idea this was coming. It isn’t our fault. No one has ever faced this before. I started to cry because the world makes me feel like I failed, like I somehow should magically have children running around outside when my kids have Netflix and YouTube. I never wanted to let screens into our lives, but everyone else had phones, they used iPads at school. So now I don’t have to spend my time feeling badly, I can just do things to make it better. I can’t think of a more wonderful gift!"
“Overall the training was great. It gave me knowledge and how to work with my clients on this topic. I really appreciated getting the information in a way that I could understand despite not being technology savvy.”
“I greatly enjoyed this workshop and feel that I took away some new tools and heard some things from a different perspective.”
“Oz did an excellent job delivering an engaging message on a topic that is crucial for clinicians to have knowledge of to do effective systemic work. I really look forward to learning more from his future workshops. Thanks, Oz!”
“Oz did such a great job! All the information was interesting and well communicated. I wish we had more time.”
“Oz was great. He did the right amount of pausing, the right amount of asking us to be thoughtful and answer before he told us information. He actually left time at the end to think about how we could prevent and treat things-which often gets so rushed through at the end because so much time has been taken up in the morning over history and nonsense we usually already know. He did a great job pausing himself and saying we would learn such and such later on in the day, and he, at least twice maybe three times, asked us if his pace was conducive to our learning.”
“This workshop was great. I walked away with a new perspective of the importance of assessing and understanding how my clients view, interact with and use technology. It also gave me ideas of how I can be more mindful and intentional in my own screen use.”
“This was a terrific training that lots of people should be exposed to.”