It’s 07.30h our phone wakes us up. You snooze twice, it’s 07.48h, you check your phone. WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. We have breakfast, check the news. We hop into the shower and play some music on Spotify. It’s 08.40h and we take our bike to cylcle to class whilst listening to music – on our phone. It’s 09.00h and we store our phone to pay attention to an interesting lecture on information strategy. We’ve only been up 1,5 hours and our morning is dominated by our phones. Of course, this might not be this extreme for us ’90s kids, but the ’00s kids are controlled by their phones. More and more people are at risk of becoming addicted. (Statista, 2018)
Just some numbers from the Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey:
– An average U.S. smartphone users checks their phone 47 times a day
-85% uses their phone while in social company
-Only halve the people who tried to cut down their smartphone usage succeeded.
An average American teen receives their smartphone at the age of 10(!) and spends 4.5 hours a day on it. Taken into account that around this age a child’s’ age is still developing rapidly is an unwelcome motive. This even worries some trusted Apple investors who are trying to make the company aware of the effect they have on children’s mental development. In this letter the encourage the tech giant to fund research into what their products are doing to a child’s brain. To emphasize the gravity of the situation, this letter was signed on behalf of investors who own almost 2 billion USD of Apple’s stock. (Dailybeast, 2018) This might have a serious impact even though it’s just 0,22% of the companies total value.
Another study from 2015 conducted in the U.S. concluded that young people who stopped using their phones performed worse on cognitive and mental tasks, suffering from ‘withdrawal’. This even showed in an increased heart rate and blood pressure. (Clayton, 2015) Another more recent study from 2017 even links smartphone usage to increased depression and suicide amongst adolescents. (Twenge, 2017) So all things considered this issue should not be taken lightheartedly. Parents should monitor their children’s screen-time more closely to prevent a digital pandemic.
Clayton, R., Leshner, G. and Almond, A. (2015), “The Extended iSelf: The Impact of iPhone Separation on Cognition, Emotion, and Physiology”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
Statista (2018), “America’s Smartphone Addiction” accessed via: https://www.statista.com/chart/12403/smartphone-addiction/
The Daily Beast (2018), “Just How Bad Is Kids’ Smartphone Addiction?” accessed via: Just How Bad Is Kids’ Smartphone Addiction?
Twenge (2017), “Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time”. Sage Journals
Interesting article Rick. The thing is we use our phones mainly because they are the gateways to social medias. These have become embedded into our lives unlike any other technology before, with active social media users reaching the bar of 3 billion in 2018. (We Are Social, 2018) -1 billion more than in 2015.
Moreover, they have been designed specifically for us to be addicted, through 2 distinct phenomenon: one biological -dopamine-, the other social -instant gratification (Medium, 2018). Dopamine is a hormone released in our brain, causing a goal-directed behavior and in general increases arousal. Instant gratification, on the other hand, depicts a way of experiencing pleasure and fulfillment without delay or patience because it provides a spike in dopamine without effort or discipline.
So how do these 2 work together on social media? Posts, likes, statuses, pictures, all these interactions provoke instant gratification, creating a spike of dopamine. However, this feeling of pleasure disappears as quickly as it came, and it is easy to be stuck in a dopamine-induced loop. In other words, dopamine makes you seek, leading to short pleasure, creating more dopamine leading you to search more. Although social media is digital, the addiction it can create is as real as can be. In fact, 210 million people are estimated to be suffering from such affliction. (Influencer Marketing Agency, 2018).
It is interesting to see however that companies do react to these events. The new IOS12 now provides Iphones with a weekly Screen Report, showing app usage and the related time spent on them, as well as an average daily screen time (Ceres et al., 2018). Similarly, Google is testing a Digital Wellbeing toolset, helping people understand and manage their tech usage (Wellbeing.google, 2018)
Ultimately, as you pointed out, it is up to us adults to educate the younger generation to the danger of over-connectedness. The challenge will be to lead by example.
Bibliography:
Ceres, P., Ceres, P., Staff, W., Staff, W., Barrett, B., Dreyfuss, E., Gonzalez, R. and Pardes, A. (2018). How to Use Apple’s Screen Time Controls on iOS 12. [online] WIRED. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-use-screen-time-ios-12/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].
Mediakix | Influencer Marketing Agency. (2018). The 8 Social Media Addiction Statistics Everyone Needs To See. [online] Available at: http://mediakix.com/2018/04/social-media-addiction-statistics/#gs.1OtDBiI [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].
Medium. (2018). Why You’re Addicted to Social Media — Dopamine, Technology, and Inequality. [online] Available at: https://medium.com/@Reece_Robertson/why-youre-addicted-to-social-media-dopamine-technology-inequality-c2cca07ed3ee [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].
We Are Social. (2018). Digital in 2018: World’s internet users pass the 4 billion mark – We Are Social. [online] Available at: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2018/01/global-digital-report-2018 [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].
Wellbeing.google. (2018). Our commitment to Digital Wellbeing | Google. [online] Available at: https://wellbeing.google/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].