What do you get when you give lab rats a strong dose of technology? Do they become anxious? Addicted? Neurotic? Actually, it’s an impossible experiment that we’ll have to just work out on ourselves this time (and are doing so at increasing speed). Will technology end up making us sick?

In the latest controversy over the suppression of results from a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd comments, “Americans are so addicted to techno-surfing that they’ve gotten hubristic about how many machines they can juggle simultaneously.” She explains how a colleague of hers recently filed a story from his laptop while driving on the highway.

According to the study taken years ago, there are estimates that drivers talking on their cell phones caused 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents in 2002. As cell phone adoption increases, we can only expect to see those numbers increase. And this isn’t just about talking without a headset. According to another article, “The researchers had rightly proposed a warning to state governors about the initial finding that laws mandating the use of hands-free devices did not solve the problem. The conversation is the distraction.”

Technology, of course, is just a tool and like any tool it can be used for better or for worse. There’s no need for a discourse on the marvels of technology. We’re all keenly reminded each time we make a trip to the doctor, fly accross the country, or have a video chat with a friend on the other side of the globe. Technology generally, makes our lives easier and less of a burden. But we seem to be entering new territory with the likes of social networking applications and our continuous feedback systems. How much is too much? What’s our threshold?

Our weakness is not so much the use of technology, but our human predisposition to addiction. We are “desire-lings” as a friend of mine likes to say. Dowd concludes her article by writing, “ Auto companies are busy creating new crack hits for our self-destructive cravings. Ford is developing a system that would let drivers use phones and music players and surf the Internet with voice commands and audible responses. Sounds like a computerized death machine. But, as our dealers know, we’ll never disconnect.”

I’m sorry to say I’m battling my own addiction with “Ego” (no, not that one), an iPhone app that lets you monitor your web site’s analytics, Mint account, RSS subscribers and Twitter followers all in one “let’s-make it-simple” screen. Here are some of the endorsements from their website:

“If you manage a web site and are a statistic junkie, this app will be a fantastic investment.”

“Ego is crack cocaine for the average statistics junkie.”

Since when did apps become synonymous with crack cocaine? I have to admit, it’s extremely addictive to sneak in a glance every now and then…maybe just twice a day…ok, several times a day. The mind chatter usually goes something like “I wonder how many visitors I’ve had today” or “Hmmm, my Twitter followers count is lower than yesterday. Could it be me my posts?”

Many of my colleagues–long-time tech veterans–are amazed by the popularity of Twitter. It’s just a fad, right? I mean, who cares what you just ate for lunch. Apparently, a lot of people. There’s even a Twitterholic site that lists the top 100 users with the most followers. As of July 2009, Britney Spears has 2,519,275 followers and her last tweet was: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRETT!!!!! XOXO”. Go figure.

The social pressure from joining social networks like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace can be overwhelming. All of a sudden you find yourself taking on a virtual life that must be tended to OR ELSE. It’s like having another you in some parallel universe. God forbid you forget to feed it, bathe it and take care of its every need.

Despair.com has a diagram it uses on one of its t-shirts that shines some light on our obsessive online social habits. It’s no surprise that unhealthy mental states such as narcissism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) and stalking are terms used to sarcastically describe Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and TweetStalk–yes, TweetStalk! I cringe at the thought of my 7 year old daughter entering the social networks realm.

And, of course, there’s more. I’m not an authority on the habits of teenagers these days, but clearly texting is still something they do often. Do they really do “sexting”?

I have a neighbor who tells me he answers text message while driving his Harley-Davidson on the freeway! Apparently he answers using a quick-text picker that inserts a pre-populated response. Still, I think, “Can’t he just answer them later?”…”when he’s not driving on the freeway with one hand at 70 mph?”

And if phone calls, email, voicemail, tweets and text messages are not enough to make you swerve into a ditch, with the release of iPhone 3.0 there are now iPhone instant messenger apps that will let you receive all your collective chat accounts via “push notifications” or alerts to your phone. Imagine, always being “available” to your chatting friends.

How many more information feeds will we use via our phones, at our desk, in the car, at home? What about while we’re sleeping?

The Zeo Sleep Monitor will monitor your sleep behavior for you. According to their web site, the Zeo “works seamlessly with your personal computer to offer you another window into the world of your sleep.” Great, another addiction for my weak reptilian brain.

As we already know, technology seems to be wonderful for lighting up the pleasure centers in our brains. Unlike our primitive ancestors, we can get a fix anytime, anywhere. Music, video, comedy, games, sexual arousel…

Marc Andressen, entrepreneur and multi-millionaire best known as founder of Netscape Communications Corporation, is launching a $300 million venture capital fund and apparently, has strong preferences for backing companies whose products “make your brain secrete dopamine”.

Josh Quittner reports in his TIME blog post: “The neurotransmitter is kind of a drug of anticipation—we secrete it when thinking about food and sex. A few months ago, I was talking to Andreessen and he told me, half jokingly, that “I’m only investing in dopamine companies.” He’d been spending some time looking into it and determined that other things stimulate its production as well. Blackberries and iPhones for instance. You know how, when you’re at a dinner table and some nitz pulls out his iPhone and starts checking his email? And how you and everyone else reflexively reaches for theirs? That, my friends, is a dopamine response, and if you pay attention, you’ll start noticing all kinds of things that spur it.”

Ugh. Stop! We’re not a bunch of caged rhesus monkeys waiting for a pellet to drop!

So, where do we go from here? Will we recognize our fragility as sentient beings with soft, malleable minds? Will we recognize the long-term effects of our technological advances? Form AA groups for recovering technophiles?

Actually, technology isn’t the problem, it’s us. Are we a mature enough species to wield responsibly, tech’s awesome power and use it for the benefit of ourselves and other beings? Will we employ skillful means or will technology be our next crack cocaine? Our next DUI? Technology was supposed to make our lives easier and ease the burden of being human. Will we have the good sense to know when to leave it parked in the garage?  The rats won’t tell.