Modern Tech Addiction & Harmful Smartphone Use

We're addicted to tech and handcuffed to our smartphones!

To be fair, tech has done much good! It has improved our lives and communities by enhancing communication, giving us unprecedented access to information, enabling collaboration on projects in dynamic ways, keeping us connected to people we care about, assisting in discovering new friendships, allowing us to offload mundane tasks through automation, and the list could go on. I'll be the first to admit that I much prefer shopping on Amazon than going the ol' fashion brick-and-mortar route. My iPhone is my inbox, scheduler, travel guide, newspaper, receipt scanner, financial asssistant, bookstore, music player, camera, photo album, phone and directory all-in-one. It does more things than I can imagine a device of its size doing and, quite honestly, is the glue that pieces together so many moving parts of my life and work.

The work I start on my desktop in the office is so easily handed off to the phone in my pocket. Even for this blog, so often, the brainstorming, initial writing, editing and publishing of posts is centered more around my iPhone than my computer.

All of these advancements, and resulting advantages, causes me to be tethered to my smartphone. It's either in my back pocket, on my desk, in the car cup holder, or on my night stand. For all 24 hours of the day, it is rarely more than two feet away from my body. And with the water resistant capabilities of the new phones, people are even bringing them into the shower. Is there no reprieve?

The following video ("Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" by Moby) is a chilling look at our modern tech and smartphone addiction (warning: there are disturbing images, including reference to suicide). I had to watch it more than once to take in all the nuances.

As a parent, my thoughts quickly went from me to our boys. I imagined Jacob or Christopher as that confused little boy at the center of the video. Is this how they see me when they don't see me apart from my phone? Or will they be one of the mindless masses staring into those bright screens while walking into life's potholes and off cliffs? Dare I say, will they be the one ridiculed by the hoards of internet trolls because of an off-moment caught on camera?

I think we all could benefit from creating some distance from and boundaries around our smartphones.
 

Here are some healthy behaviors for us all:

1. Get untethered and stay offline for a significant portion of time every evening. You might go through withdrawal, but fight through it. If the phone is always an arm's length away, it's too habitual to check it for unnecessary things. Spend quality time with the people in your real world, not your digital one.

2. Refrain from social media to fill spare time. One of the most common cross-demographic reasons for using social media is to "fill up spare time."

The average person spends almost 2 hours per day (30% of online time) on social networks and messaging. And women, younger age groups, and the bottom income quartile lead the way (source: Global Web Index).

Too often, waiting rooms, meal times, park benches, and car rides become the places where we scan our newsfeeds instead of engaging with our surroundings.

Let's make sure the people in our lives see us for significant stretches of time without our noses in our phones.

3. Don't post everything all the time. "Likes" is the new wonder drug and we're all addicted. This is why we keep going back to our social media apps and checking post engagement. And the more I post, the more things I'm constantly checking.

4. Identify what apps you're on the most and get on an app diet. For iPhone users, go to "Settings" and tap on "Battery" to see the percentages of app usage for the last 24 hours and last 7 days. By clicking the "clock icon," you can see how much time you've spent on each app. For Android users, go to "Settings" > "Device" > "Battery or Settings" > "Power" > "Battery Use" to see a list of all apps and how much battery power they're using. This is in-your-face information that will help you target what apps you're addicted to. For more resources, check out these five apps to help keep you off your phone.

5. Don't charge your phone next to where you sleep. I know those who use their phones as an alarm clock will have issues with this, but it goes back to the first behavior (if it's too close all the time, it's too tempting and habitual).

Good things are prone to addiction and unintentionally inflict more harm when left unchecked.