Smart Phones Are Mental!
Throughout the 2020 pandemic smartphones provided the world with a way of communicating when they couldn't see others but smartphones don't always prove to be beneficial to all
Imagine it’s the year 2021 and I`ve never had a Smartphone.
“Is this guy for real?”
You may ask.
And that’s a fair enough question.
And the answer is a simple “Yes!”.
But, the Smartphone is not a new invention. In fact, by 2021 in human terms, it was well into its adult years.
Invented in 1992, the Smartphone didn’t come to market for another couple of years but when it did it started gathering popularity. In the first six months alone, it had 50,000 sales. Its features included e-mail, faxes, address book, touch screen, and predictive typing.
But the battery only lasted an hour or so.
Roll on another fifteen years to 2007 and the Smartphone had graduated to a 3.5-inch screen that featured included e-mail, touch screen, maps, web browsing, and an iPod.
And the price had halved but the battery life was now 7 hours longer.
But there are many people all around the world who struggle with putting down the Smartphone. This is because they are addicted to their devices.
Before these devices came to market it was thought only certain people had addictive personalities. And they were presumed to be addicted as their destructive behaviors were clear to anyone in society as some were evidently seen as alcoholics, drug addicts, or gambling addicts.
Since smartphones came on the market, a much larger amount of people have become overly reliant on their devices and this has led them down the path of addiction.
Take the children of this world as an example.
Many have been given smartphones at a very young age and this has overstimulated their brains.
I’ve worked with children who have had social and emotional developmental issues brought on and exasperated by excess Smartphone usage. Many have had problems going to and staying asleep during the night and this has made them behave very negatively as a result.
From a Radiological Society of North America study, it was found that neurological imbalances in brain chemistry were noticed in children in comparison to a control group. The Journal of the Association for Consumer Research discovered that even when a Smartphone is in reach cognitive function is decreased.
And then there’s the potential sleep interruptions.
The Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences study researched a dozen adults who were asked to either read on an iPad for four hours or read printed books in dim lighting right before bedtime. After five nights those that were reading on the smart phone had more disrupted sleep patterns.
And it’s not just children’s brains who are challenged by smart phones.
As phones make adults brain lazy.
As the technology is so sophisticated, you don’t need to memorize people’s numbers anymore because once you enter into the contact list the phone can automatically call a person without ever having to access their number again. Dates can be popped into the handsets calendar and alarms will go off when you need them to. And you don’t even have to access your spatial awareness as the phone’s maps feature is sophisticated and it will guide you to where you want to go very easily.
One of the things about having a smartphone is that you’re constantly inundated by news updates, emails, text messages, and WhatsApp notifications.
Almost three-quarters of people have claimed to feel anxiety because they have a smartphone and that’s not surprising given that the average US adult spends 2–4 hours daily tapping the phone.
And with the ability to contact anyone at any time through a range of social media companies such as Facebook, Snap chat, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and a variety of others your attention is constantly being challenged to check out the next post on your phone which means you`re never alone. Instead, your thoughts are highly influenced by the excess scrolling that is done and this means you can be always on edge rather than being completely relaxed.
Chemically speaking, those that are addicted have dysfunctional reward pathways in their brains. These pathways are responsible for the release of dopamine in your brain and as this creates a sense of false reward to human brains, those that become addicted crave the phone interaction even more frequently simply because they`re hooked.
As your brain is designed to be speedy, to problem solve, to think creatively, to organize, rationalize, and think independently or about others at times, anything that speedily takes it away from its primary intentions is messing up the brain’s developmental capacities, especially if you have a young brain.
In essence, the brain is like a muscle so if you don’ use it you’ll lose it.
And the amount of degenerative neurological diseases are on the up too. As they increase you need to be aware to exercise your brain otherwise it will lose its power to help you. Because our brain likes to be worked so that they will work for you in the longer term.
And that involves your thought process being as sharp it can be.
My final thoughts then, for now, are ‘Maybe the Smartphone isn’t so smart after all!”
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