Global survey reveals an addiction to technology

A groundbreaking global study by Cranfield School of Management which examined the effects of information communication technology (ICT) on individuals, reveals that one in three people in the world admit to being addicted to technology. The study explored technology usage from the context of how individuals spend their working and social day overall.

Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of International Management Development at Cranfield School of Management explained: ìOur global study concluded that techno-addiction is all about being addicted to a particular lifestyle (or work style) and as such, is driven by ambition, need for relationships, need for intimacy and social networking and age. Some people live to socialise, others live to work, whilst others guard their privacy and personal time.î

The study includes quantitative data from over 1,200 respondents across a broad spectrum of society, ranging from lower income groups to top managers and directors. Responses were divided into four separate profiles which were examined in terms of technology adoption, work-related usage, personal related usage, pleasure orientation and addiction to ICT.

The younger, more capable, ambitious group leverage technology to satisfy their ambitious and work related drives but equally emphasise their flirting and interest in sexual advances.
The younger, pleasure orientated, sexually driven group draw heavily on technology to facilitate friendships, flirting, social networking and sexual advances to the point where such activities can dominate the working day.
The older, more professional socially driven group guard their private time and limit their use of technology to the workplace. Surprisingly, they too report an interest in flirting and sexual advances.
The middle aged, more middle management group, use technology to do just what is required of them in their job, even though that may encroach into their private time. They also admitted to flirting and sexual advances.

The study also revealed that almost 50% of the respondents use work computers for personal reasons. An overwhelming 70% of the young, capable and ambitious group admitted to spending up to 24% of their time browsing the internet for personal reasons, although many stated there were also some work related reasons for doing so.

ìShockingly,î said Professor Andrew Kakabadse, ìover 70% of the group that are young, autonomous, personally well connected and sensitive indicated that they spend up to 50% of their working day accessing social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace to satisfy their social/personal needs.î

The report shows that more than half admit to using the internet for flirting, affairs and sexual advances. Over 55% of the group that were young, pleasure orientated and sexually driven stated they have made sexual advances online and have had direct or indirect sexual advances made towards them in return. Similarly, between 26% and 47% of the other three groups admit to being the target of sexual advances and between 18.5% and 35.9% to making sexual advances.