As of right now my phone has had 1 hr. and 11 min. of screen on time since its last full charge. It got unplugged from the charger when I woke up at 7. It is now 10:47 am. Within 3 hours and 47 min I have been awake, my phone has been on for 31% of it. The kicker in this whole situation is that I consider myself a light user.
Technology is ever present in today’s society. If you don’t have a smartphone people will look at you weird. You will be judged by other people and ironically miss out on different events that get scheduled because “What do you mean you didn’t get the Facebook invite?”
In 2017, it is expected.
Everything we do in college, for the most part, can be done on a laptop or phone. You can read, highlight, and write your way to a degree right from your computer.
Technology, it would seem, is a passive addiction. If I was an alcoholic, my friends, the people around me, and society, in general, would be quick to point out how much time and money I was spending on booze.
Technology is different. It is slyer than booze. With technology, nobody pays it any mind because “It’s making the world better!”
Facebook is to keep up with the family!
Computers are a great way to do homework!
Snapchat is a great way to keep up with friends!
iPads are great for reading!
Instagram is great to see what is going on with my friends!
Smartphones are truly one of the greatest advents of this generation!
On their own each piece of the grand puzzle is a benefit, it serves a purpose. But put them all together and you get a recipe for a lifestyle. A lifestyle centered around screen time.
Is this truly that bad? That is not for me to say. Significant evidence has linked phone use to sleep deprivation, social media use to loneliness, and screen time has been linked to unhappy thoughts and maybe even depression.
Humans evolved 200,000 years ago as hunter gathers that roamed the countryside. The lifestyle that humans have lived has changed over the course of time, but I don’t think anyone would argue that since modern smartphone technology, the lifestyle we are living is the furthest it has ever been from the environment for which humans evolved.
And that is something to consider.
I really like your comparison of smartphones to a slyer booze. It is actually a very accurate statement because smartphones and apps have literally been designed and updated to become addictive. Creators look at how each thing the implement will appear to the mind and eye of the user to keep them coming back to their product. It’s pretty crazy!
I think it’s fascinating that you compared a smartphone addiction to alcoholism; I never thought about a smartphone addiction that way before. The marketing and design is so cunning that most don’t even notice that it is literally made to be addictive. I also enjoyed how you brought up that you used your phone 31% of the time you were awake and that is still considered “light.” The style you brought to this article was interesting!