ADDICT; ADDICTION: Amazing how many Latin words survive in English, a Germanic language, but then, the Romans occupied parts of the British Isles for centuries. Something had to stick, one would think. And among the “borrowed” cognates are addict and addiction, both apparently deriving from Latin addicere. This is where the etymological story gets a bit complicated.
You can, of course, look online for the etymology. I chose, however, to go to the 1958 edition of Follett’s Latin dictionary, one compiled by 19th-century scholar John T. White, D.D. Oxon., the Rector of St. Martin, Ludgate, London (Appellations from the title page, and the T. stands for Tahourdin). Belaboring the point in these days when so many cries of racism abound, I’ll note that the eponymous title of the tome, The White Latin Dictionary, has nothing to do with White’s whiteness. The guy was born with that name. Anyway, as I was telling you, the derivations of addicere are rife with subtle linguistic histories.
Now, this is becoming boring from the start, isn’t it? So, let me circle back to the significance of the etymology after a bit of a distraction. Then, maybe you’ll stick with this for the unraveling of the linguistic complications that might inspire you to rethink your sense of the word addiction.
I’m old enough to remember when pocket-size AM radios hit the market and when earphones became popular. Those staticky radios didn’t offer much in the way of quality sound. Contemporary technology being what it is, a series of progressive inventions, portable radios that played FM stations through headphones became popular. Big sound quality change—you had to be there to hear the difference. I also remember the boombox rage, people carrying on their shoulders large radios with cassette players to blast sounds into not only their ears but also into any ears within a city block or two. And I remember adults of the times worrying about teenage “addiction” to these distracting devices. The concern? Teens were apparently foregoing healthful interpersonal relationships as they became lost in their personal and sometimes deafening sound machines. Could anyone really communicate with another while listening to loud music? Was there a way to free teens from their isolating addiction?
Turns out that the teens of those AM radio days are now senior citizens with grandkids and great grandkids. Few of those older folks still listen to their pocket radios, those devices now buried in some attic trunk. No. Now, even Granny has a smartphone, and might even have a portable Bluetooth speaker or set of expensive earphones or headphones. Of course, having listened to loud music in their youth, grannies and grandpas now of necessity must listen to loud music, what with all that damage incurred long ago to the cells and membranes of their cochlea.
Note, however, that regardless of the older folks having adapted to the newer technology, that they, like their parents, still voice concerns about the effects of smart devices on young people. “Are they addicted?” they wonder. Will they all have deformed spines as they bend their necks hours upon hours, none of them realizing that when they are “old folks,” they, too, will a pay an inevitable price in aching necks and useless cochlea?
We have all heard the complaints that an addiction to smart devices reduces human interaction to a life in an indirect world, evidenced by the incessant texting that has replaced actual phone conversations. Today’s complaining older generation has a faulty memory, however, and a bit of hypocrisy. Adults who grew up with those AM radios and who now worry about the psychological and social damage wrought by the universal addiction to portable smart devices probably carry everywhere and use the same devices. “Grandma, where did you put the cookies?” “What’s that? Say it louder in my good ear.” “GRANDMA, COULD YOU TAKE OFF THOSE HEADPHONES FOR A MOMENT?” “Why do I use the headphones? Well, my hearing’s shot, so I have to maximize the sound.” “I WAS ASKING ABOUT THE COOKIES!”
But wait! Maybe things aren’t so bad. Maybe smartphones, just as portable AM radios, won’t bring humanity crashing down onto a Mumbai-sized pile of outmoded phones and bypassed tech. Maybe, humans will survive the addiction, though with diminished eyesight and hearing. In fact, there’s even some evidence that smartphones aren’t really addictive and that users aren’t “truly” addicts. Instead of labeling smartphone and smart device use as an addiction, a University of Manchester researcher named Joshua Bluteau believes, “the behaviors observed in [my] research could be better labeled as problematic or maladaptive smartphone use [,] and their consequences to not meet the severity levels of those caused by addiction.” *
So, apparently neither Granny nor her grandchildren (You fit in there somewhere), are actually suffering from an addiction. Their behavior is, however, “problematic,” or “maladaptive.” Do you feel better now? Sure, you might still have that chronic neck pain from looking down at your device, and your eyes might be failing sooner than expected, but at least you know that you aren’t an addict. And that, dear reader, brings us around that circle to the concept of addiction.
Is there a larger picture here about the status of our mental wellbeing and our behaviors? Although Bluteau doesn’t conclude a smart device addiction, he does say in his article that “…internet and computer use are ingrained in contemporary society and have changed the way we live our lives more than any other technological medium yet.” There’s something to ponder. But does your pondering entail “addiction”? Should you rethink your idea of addiction?
Since the end of the Middle Ages, we have been advancing technologically. Of course, no such advance from 1453 through the 18th century or even the 19th century has been quite as fast as the advances of the second half of the 20th- and first two decades of the 21st- centuries. It wasn’t too long ago that in an episode of Seinfeld Jerry asked a date whether or not she was a scientist because she used email. And I remember my own introduction to email when I said aloud, “You mean you can talk to someone anywhere without a phone charge?” Technological change has been rapid. AM radios with earphones plugged into ears can’t come close to the smartphones and smart devices that are plugged into our minds. Our lives are now intertwined with smart devices. Email, though not supplanted, has been advanced by texts. Earphones and headphones? People are wearing virtual reality headsets! Are kids living in and addicted to a virtual world?
And here’s that complication: Addico, addicere (L.) has many meanings and uses. White’s dictionary lists these:
“to speak to a matter”
“to be propitious to” (as “of an omen”: think the soothsayer’s famous warning to Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March”)
“to award” (in law)
“to judge” (in law)
“to give over to the highest bidder” (as in an auction)
“to sell”
“to deliver”
“to yield”
“to make over”
“to devote”
“to consecrate to”
“to give up”
“to sacrifice”
“to abandon”
And the cognate adjective addictus has the following meanings:
“inclined”
“devoted”
“destined”
“compelled”
“forced”
“bound”
“necessitated”
Getting the message? Have these various meanings stirred in you a treasure chest filled with associations? I can’t speak for you, but I see in addicts and addictions almost every one of these terms.
I could, if you know my penchant for associations, write on each of these and their relevance to modern addictions, but I trust my audience to have synthetic minds. You, I know, can make connections I might not see. Sure, it’s easy to point out what sacrifices addicts make, how they abandon, how they are compelled, and how they make over their lives and the lives of others. But all addictions are complex, as is the encompassing word by which addicts are known.
Does your smartphone or smart device use fall under any of those meanings? Are you an addict in any sense of the word? Is your brain now stirring with new definitions of addiction?
*White, John T. D.D. Oxon. Rector of Sta. Martin, Ludgate, London. The White Latin Dictionary. Chicago. The Follett Publishing Company, 1958.
**Bluteau, Joshua. Mental Health 2020: Obsessive Consumption Disorder: Tackling the problem of handheld digital addiction. Journal of Cognitive Neuropsychology. 2020. Vol. 4, No. 3. Online at https://www.imedpub.com/articles/mental-health-2020-obsessive-consumption-disorder-tackling-the-problem-of-handheld-digital-addiction--university-of-manchester-uk.pdf
You can, of course, look online for the etymology. I chose, however, to go to the 1958 edition of Follett’s Latin dictionary, one compiled by 19th-century scholar John T. White, D.D. Oxon., the Rector of St. Martin, Ludgate, London (Appellations from the title page, and the T. stands for Tahourdin). Belaboring the point in these days when so many cries of racism abound, I’ll note that the eponymous title of the tome, The White Latin Dictionary, has nothing to do with White’s whiteness. The guy was born with that name. Anyway, as I was telling you, the derivations of addicere are rife with subtle linguistic histories.
Now, this is becoming boring from the start, isn’t it? So, let me circle back to the significance of the etymology after a bit of a distraction. Then, maybe you’ll stick with this for the unraveling of the linguistic complications that might inspire you to rethink your sense of the word addiction.
I’m old enough to remember when pocket-size AM radios hit the market and when earphones became popular. Those staticky radios didn’t offer much in the way of quality sound. Contemporary technology being what it is, a series of progressive inventions, portable radios that played FM stations through headphones became popular. Big sound quality change—you had to be there to hear the difference. I also remember the boombox rage, people carrying on their shoulders large radios with cassette players to blast sounds into not only their ears but also into any ears within a city block or two. And I remember adults of the times worrying about teenage “addiction” to these distracting devices. The concern? Teens were apparently foregoing healthful interpersonal relationships as they became lost in their personal and sometimes deafening sound machines. Could anyone really communicate with another while listening to loud music? Was there a way to free teens from their isolating addiction?
Turns out that the teens of those AM radio days are now senior citizens with grandkids and great grandkids. Few of those older folks still listen to their pocket radios, those devices now buried in some attic trunk. No. Now, even Granny has a smartphone, and might even have a portable Bluetooth speaker or set of expensive earphones or headphones. Of course, having listened to loud music in their youth, grannies and grandpas now of necessity must listen to loud music, what with all that damage incurred long ago to the cells and membranes of their cochlea.
Note, however, that regardless of the older folks having adapted to the newer technology, that they, like their parents, still voice concerns about the effects of smart devices on young people. “Are they addicted?” they wonder. Will they all have deformed spines as they bend their necks hours upon hours, none of them realizing that when they are “old folks,” they, too, will a pay an inevitable price in aching necks and useless cochlea?
We have all heard the complaints that an addiction to smart devices reduces human interaction to a life in an indirect world, evidenced by the incessant texting that has replaced actual phone conversations. Today’s complaining older generation has a faulty memory, however, and a bit of hypocrisy. Adults who grew up with those AM radios and who now worry about the psychological and social damage wrought by the universal addiction to portable smart devices probably carry everywhere and use the same devices. “Grandma, where did you put the cookies?” “What’s that? Say it louder in my good ear.” “GRANDMA, COULD YOU TAKE OFF THOSE HEADPHONES FOR A MOMENT?” “Why do I use the headphones? Well, my hearing’s shot, so I have to maximize the sound.” “I WAS ASKING ABOUT THE COOKIES!”
But wait! Maybe things aren’t so bad. Maybe smartphones, just as portable AM radios, won’t bring humanity crashing down onto a Mumbai-sized pile of outmoded phones and bypassed tech. Maybe, humans will survive the addiction, though with diminished eyesight and hearing. In fact, there’s even some evidence that smartphones aren’t really addictive and that users aren’t “truly” addicts. Instead of labeling smartphone and smart device use as an addiction, a University of Manchester researcher named Joshua Bluteau believes, “the behaviors observed in [my] research could be better labeled as problematic or maladaptive smartphone use [,] and their consequences to not meet the severity levels of those caused by addiction.” *
So, apparently neither Granny nor her grandchildren (You fit in there somewhere), are actually suffering from an addiction. Their behavior is, however, “problematic,” or “maladaptive.” Do you feel better now? Sure, you might still have that chronic neck pain from looking down at your device, and your eyes might be failing sooner than expected, but at least you know that you aren’t an addict. And that, dear reader, brings us around that circle to the concept of addiction.
Is there a larger picture here about the status of our mental wellbeing and our behaviors? Although Bluteau doesn’t conclude a smart device addiction, he does say in his article that “…internet and computer use are ingrained in contemporary society and have changed the way we live our lives more than any other technological medium yet.” There’s something to ponder. But does your pondering entail “addiction”? Should you rethink your idea of addiction?
Since the end of the Middle Ages, we have been advancing technologically. Of course, no such advance from 1453 through the 18th century or even the 19th century has been quite as fast as the advances of the second half of the 20th- and first two decades of the 21st- centuries. It wasn’t too long ago that in an episode of Seinfeld Jerry asked a date whether or not she was a scientist because she used email. And I remember my own introduction to email when I said aloud, “You mean you can talk to someone anywhere without a phone charge?” Technological change has been rapid. AM radios with earphones plugged into ears can’t come close to the smartphones and smart devices that are plugged into our minds. Our lives are now intertwined with smart devices. Email, though not supplanted, has been advanced by texts. Earphones and headphones? People are wearing virtual reality headsets! Are kids living in and addicted to a virtual world?
And here’s that complication: Addico, addicere (L.) has many meanings and uses. White’s dictionary lists these:
“to speak to a matter”
“to be propitious to” (as “of an omen”: think the soothsayer’s famous warning to Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March”)
“to award” (in law)
“to judge” (in law)
“to give over to the highest bidder” (as in an auction)
“to sell”
“to deliver”
“to yield”
“to make over”
“to devote”
“to consecrate to”
“to give up”
“to sacrifice”
“to abandon”
And the cognate adjective addictus has the following meanings:
“inclined”
“devoted”
“destined”
“compelled”
“forced”
“bound”
“necessitated”
Getting the message? Have these various meanings stirred in you a treasure chest filled with associations? I can’t speak for you, but I see in addicts and addictions almost every one of these terms.
I could, if you know my penchant for associations, write on each of these and their relevance to modern addictions, but I trust my audience to have synthetic minds. You, I know, can make connections I might not see. Sure, it’s easy to point out what sacrifices addicts make, how they abandon, how they are compelled, and how they make over their lives and the lives of others. But all addictions are complex, as is the encompassing word by which addicts are known.
Does your smartphone or smart device use fall under any of those meanings? Are you an addict in any sense of the word? Is your brain now stirring with new definitions of addiction?
*White, John T. D.D. Oxon. Rector of Sta. Martin, Ludgate, London. The White Latin Dictionary. Chicago. The Follett Publishing Company, 1958.
**Bluteau, Joshua. Mental Health 2020: Obsessive Consumption Disorder: Tackling the problem of handheld digital addiction. Journal of Cognitive Neuropsychology. 2020. Vol. 4, No. 3. Online at https://www.imedpub.com/articles/mental-health-2020-obsessive-consumption-disorder-tackling-the-problem-of-handheld-digital-addiction--university-of-manchester-uk.pdf
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