If you ever wondered how smartphones affect our daily life, you only have to look around. The majority of people on the streets have their smartphone stuck to their hands like an extension of their bodies. In public transport people are not communicating with the strangers next to them, but opening their Facebook app for the fourth time in ten minutes to check if their news feed is updated. Most people even bring their smartphones to bed making it the last thing they see before they go to sleep and the first thing they think of in the morning.
With over three billion smartphone users worldwide, it is not hard to imagine these devices dominate our life. The Global Mobile Consumer Survey 2017 of Deloitte showed that 93% of the Dutch population owns a smartphone compared to 77% of the adult Americans, according to the PEW Research Center. With these high numbers come new phenomena that describe our current 24-hour connected world. Among these are Nomophobia, the fear of being without a smartphone or having no internet connection, and FOMO, the fear of missing out, which means we keep checking our devices to not miss out on any updates or posts. Next to this, many smartphone users admit to have experienced phantom vibrations or calls. 50% of smartphone users feel uncomfortable when they forget their phones at home and the founder of the Swedish mental health and well-being app Remente David Brudo claims that an average smartphone user checks their phone 80 to 150 times a day. We are therefore practically making ourselves slaves of our own smartphones without even being conscious about it.
“The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Smartphone addiction and the constant checking of social media also brings along the phenomenon of “fake reality”. We tend to only publish positive posts, photos of holidays and parties or joyful events, making social media accounts a distorted form of reality. Our self-worth is determined by the amount of likes we receive on our posts, we envy others because of the “perfect” life they live, and impose higher living standards on ourselves causing stress and depression. Whenever we have an interesting or great experience, we have the urge to share it with our digital followers, thereby feeding our smartphone addiction once again.
One thing is for sure: the fact that smartphones have a tremendous impact on our daily life is a given. The future promises many more technological breakthroughs, only increasing our dependence on and addiction to mobile devices. To fight our addiction, it is not as if we should abandon our smartphones as they also bring along a tremendous amount of benefits to make our lives easier and more interesting. It is, however, healthy to be aware of our extensive usage and not to forget to conduct a conversation with the stranger sitting next to you on the train. We should guard against becoming robots ourselves and make sure to stay human.
References
https://newzoo.com/key-numbers/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/
https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/technologie-media-telecom/articles/global-mobile-consumer-survey.html
http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/
https://www.trustmypaper.com/blog/15-terrifying-statistics-on-your-cellphone-addiction
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/phantom-vibration-addiction
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/cartoon/2017-04/17/content_28952890.htm
I do not agree about the first part – I think people have always been antisocial on trains, and almost never had conversations with strangers, same as now – it’s just that before they were reading newspapers, books, or were just lost in their thoughts – and now do absolutely the same things, just through a smartphone.
However, I agree 100% with the “fake reality”, where we all pretend to have perfect lives on social media, and this warps our understanding of how things really are!