Baskadia

While internet addiction must have existed to some extent

during the late twentieth century when these technologies

were first emerging, phone and internet addiction is now an

epidemic to an extent in this digital age. Not only are social

media companies intentionally baiting consumers to become

addicted to their products, but the device manufacturers

themselves are playing a hand in this issue as well.

Cell phones and other mobile devices have become more and

more addictive as they evolve. This is mainly due to the ease of

access. With longer battery life, teens can stare at their screens

for hours at a time without having to leave their beds. Larger

screens make it more appealing to watch content on your

devices.

Advanced design in the technical aspects of the phone itself,

like button placement, makes it so that a simple finger twitch

can allow for complete control over the device - even if it

seems more and more like the device has complete control

over you. Now, mobile devices can link with each other, so

people are encouraged to interact with their technology more

often.

You can watch something on your phone, open your laptop and

continue a text message conversation, and then project

whatever you were watching onto your television screen, There

are now even some refrigerators that you can text on!

Many teenagers and young adults will admit that they usually

are consistently using more than one form of technology at

once; some people keep a show playing in the background

while they use their computer to do work, and sneak breaks in

between by checking their phone.

These developments have created an environment in which

people are now completely over-saturated and over-stimulated

by their devices. Accessibility, which was once praised as one of

the greatest achievements of these technologies, is become

one of the most unfortunate distractions the human mind has

ever had to face.

Why Cell Phones are Distracting

It is no secret that distracted workers and students are not

productive. Studies show that the more dependent people

become upon their devices, the stronger the distraction effect

is. This is because when people use their devices, an area of the brain labeled the “privileged attentional space” is activated.

This area of the brain is usually activated in situations where

someone is calling our name. This means that people are

developing into closely associating their phones with their

identity, their idea of existing.

As seems apparent from the way of the world now, being apart

from your device can seem like you have been separated from

a part of yourself.

Cell phones are more than just tools to a person with a

smartphone addiction - even though that is ultimately what

they are, tools to be used. Cell phones represent much more

than that to an avid and compulsive user, now.

These devices represent their friends and access to them. They

represent accessibility and validation. Almost everyone now

has a supercomputer in their back pocket, with the ability to

known relatively anything that anyone has ever known in a

matter of seconds - or minutes, depending on your internet

provider and proximity to a cell tower. They represent power.

And what seems most interesting, these devices represent an

opportunity. With a cellphone you can know virtually anything,

contact virtually anyone, discover virtually anything - heck, you can use a GPS and travel nearly anywhere! Cellphones seem to

represent the opportunity for something to happen, and

humans love the opportunity.

What seems like a freeing tool is actually contorting a person’s

ability to act without it.

How Much Time You Spend on Your Phone

Imagine the following scenarios.

You are out with your partner on a date, and they go to the

restroom so you check your phone. You are in class and the

instructor is speaking unengagingly on a topic you are already

familiar with, so you check your phone. You just put your new￾born child to sleep and even though you are exhausted from no

sleep, you check your phone.

You feel sad and you want an escape from reality, you reach for

your phone. You feel happy and you want to share your

success with your friends, you reach for your phone. You wake

up in the morning and before you get out of bed, you check the

news. Before you go to bed you catch up on the day’s events -

before checking your phone.

How many people currently reading can resonate with the

described daily events?

Some people live their entire lives like this. Excessive phone

usage is such a well-known problem that software engineers

have even created an app to track how often you use apps!

As of now, nearly over two hundred and seventy-million

Americans own or use a smartphone. The average screen time

for Americans averages out to about ten and a half hours

collectively every single day. The recommended amount of

screen time for anyone should be around two hours, nearly

80% less than the current recorded number.

Typically the average person spends about two and half hours

of that time on social media, but this amount of time can be

much more, up to even five hours. Imagine that - almost 50% of

a person’s day consumed by some form of digital media.

Unfortunately, in the modern world, many adults have jobs

that require them to use a screen to complete their work

duties.

Nevertheless, almost half of an entire day spent burning your

eyes out looking at a screen is not good for anyone. Some

experts have calculated that a person might spend seven hundred and sixty thousand hours looking at a screen in their

lifetime. In other words, this rounds out to nearly a decade of

your life spent looking at a screen, collectively.

Studies have discovered that people pick up their phones about

ninety-six times a day, which calculates out to look at your

phone once every ten minutes. Any parents of a teenager

would surely not be surprised by that statistic.

This has so many adverse health effects, not only for the mind

and mental health but also regarding eye strain and back pain

resulting from poor posture and not moving often enough. As

you can see, compulsive phone usage has increased greatly and

screen time numbers look out of control.

The amount of time the average American spends on their

phone is absurd and unhealthy. Phones and mobile devices are

becoming less like the tools they were designed to be and more

like mental bear traps. The reality of phone usage is extremely

far from that which is recommended by specialists.

The time people spend on their phones absolutely must be

limited if there is to be a wide-scale change in how people

approach phone addiction. Due to the nature of modern work

tasks and how businesses must operate, it is understandable if not unfortunate that workers have to use screens during the

workday.

However, this translates into people needing to cut their screen

time outside of work and truly only using these devices when it

is necessary, not only when it is convenient.