Understanding iaddiction : a sociological analysis of technological device addiction and attachment in the digital age.

Technological device addiction is a phenomenon widely described anecdotally but little understood empirically across the broad landscape of American life. In this dissertation, I analyze a nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults in order to: 1) describe the socio-demographic indicators of addiction and attachment to technological devices and explore how rates of daily Internet and social media use are related to feeling addicted and attached to technology, 2) examine how searching for meaning in one’s life (or not) and having a satisfying purpose for one’s life (or not) may influence these self-reported feelings of technological addiction and attachment, 3) examine whether or not those who are addicted or attached to their devices demonstrate measurably different levels of moral and social integration compared to those who are not tech-addicted, and 4) explore how those who are addicted or attached to technology feel about their social lives. The results from these analyses will allow researchers to better understand the social and ethical processes that undergird the complex and growing phenomenon of being addicted to technology.