Sadhbh Byrne
What are you giving up for Lent? Ah, how well I can recall the pressure as my primary school teacher went around the classroom to each pupil one-by-one, taking visible delight in the purply-red complexions of her eight year old underlings as they struggled to come up with a suitably pious Lenten promise – inevitably, the vast majority settling for the thoroughly original “I’m not going to eat any sweets or Tayto, miss”.
While I have since put the experience of these scarring tests of piety behind me, as the thrusting of a bag of miniature pancakes into my hand by a chirpy Burger King employee last Tuesday morning signified the start of Lent again, I began to think – why exactly was the act of not eating thin slices of cheese and onion flavoured deep-fried potato for forty days such an admirable sacrifice? Why are some things so hard to give up?
'Why exactly was the act of not eating thin slices of cheese and onion flavoured deep-fried potato for forty days such an admirable sacrifice?'
Of course, Tayto may be the worst of all bad examples, as any self-respecting Irish person would of course rather cut off their baby toe than forego the flavoursome exquisiteness of our national crisp. In all seriousness however, addiction; even being addicted to the most banal and otherwise harmless objects; undoubtedly poses an interesting quandary.
Although the definition of addiction was once limited to the physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances which then results in biological or neurological change, a more modern definition can be taken to loosely describe the psychologically abnormal continuation of involvement with a substance or activity despite negative consequences associated with it. With this inclusion of the word “negative”, as incorporated in the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), it appears then that there cannot be a ‘positive addiction’. Even if the person is ‘addicted’ to a behaviour that is deemed positive, such as exercise, they cannot be psychologically diagnosed as an addict without there being negative consequences.
Despite these necessarily negative consequences, another essential element is of course dependence – and, as the Bard said, therein lies the rub. Although a person may in all respects show that rationally they understand the consequences of their addiction, many find it near-impossible to ‘quit the habit’ regardless. Incidentally, research in this line is currently being conducted in the School of Psychology in TCD. This research examines how people rate their addictive behaviours differently, for example – smoking. When asked to consider it’s implicit and then explicit enjoyment. Smokers consistently rate smoking as explicitly negative, which may suggest that they see the benefits of quitting; but then they also tend to attribute a positive implicit experience to the action. This begs the question then, like that ubiquitous feature of the Looney Tune Acme world, the angel and devil on your shoulders – which outweighs the other? Your knowledge that what you’re doing is bad for you; or your desire for pure pleasure?
As sleazy as that sentence sounded, it’s clear from various sources such as US TV show My Strange Addiction that, for some, the former should definitely prevail over the latter. Examples of a few episode titles include: ‘Eats Toilet Paper/Blow Dryer’, ‘Eats Couch Cushion/Furry’, and the charming “Married To A Doll/Picking My Scabs’. I’ll just let these speak for themselves.
Facebook, the king of all modern addictions
On a more relatable note, a quick scan of the screens in use in any of the computer labs in college would lend support to the claim that Facebook addiction is fast becoming a very possible phenomenon. Although internet addiction in general has been around for a few years now (in 2007 the New York Times reported the opening of The Internet Addiction Treatment Centre in China), Facebook addiction, as of yet, remains unclassified, although American therapist Paula Pile has compiled what she terms ‘The Pile Facebook Compulsion Inventory’. Ironically, if you google ‘facebook addiction’, the first result is a group page on the social networking giant itself, demonstrating its sheer pervasiveness in our lives.
It appears then, that I had a task at hand – to decide which of the two addictions I’ve had in my twenty short years on Planet Earth is the most perilous – Tayto or Facebook? Which controls me to an almost death-defying extent? Which interferes with my studying, my real-life social skills, and my success at life in general? A decision of this stature of course left me on the proverbial horns of a dilemma; a tougher choice I’ve never had to make.
Of course I’m joking. Tayto obviously won hands down.
