How did this article come about? I was doing some research into the effects of mobile devices on today’s society. As I am sure some may have noticed while on a crowded place that most necks always seem to be at a 45 degree angle, staring at that little screen that opens up an otherwise hidden world.
While researching I came up with a study that was done over a 3 year period and studied young adults of heavy vs light phone usage. The heavy phone usage group had the most negative outcomes, back pain, social anxiety, unstable moods and so on. But there was one statistic that struck me, that people that had less cellphone usage were lonelier. What is that all about I said to myself. So I gave it some thought for a while and I found a way to make sense of it. If most people around you are for the most part living in the context of their cellphones and you actually want to socialize, well, your ability to do so is limited to the amount of people that are willing to do the same. Is quite ironic that the one technology that was made to make humans so much more sociable and increase our reach ends up making us this antisocial.
Why does it bother me so much? First of all, I am not anti-technology whatsoever, I love technology and all its practical usages. I love the idea of not knowing something and being able to find the answer in just a matter of moments, that’s impressive stuff. Being able to call your parents or grandparents from the other side of the country or while traveling to another continent. Sharing with other people that are not around you the things that you see. Lets not forget about the advancements on science, medicine, artificial intelligence, all amazing in their own right.
All of this is nice but lets be honest, most people, especially the youth spend the vast majority of their time on apps like Instagram or TikTok and the endless scrolling for which they are designed to. You can look at the average cellphone user’s screen time and ask them, in all those hours of being glued to your phone, what have you learned? other than the occasional pasta recipe that we all have come to appreciate, the answer I be most of the time will be, nothing, or I’ve just been looking at funny videos. Now don’t get me wrong I am not saying that this is 100% of the human population but we can all agree that it is a decent and alarming amount of it. I wonder, what does all that screen time do to the ability of the brain to be creative, all that daily dopamine of seeing cool things all the time, how does this affect people when it comes to the real world day to day life where we really don’t know what is going to happen and life is not always as exciting. It can sure make some people feel depressed the moment they have to put their phone away to charge or run out of battery while far from home or a charger.
Little kids and mobile phones
As I already established mobile phones and social media apps have shown to have pretty negative effects on young adults, most of them at ages where the brain is fully developed, and still they stand no chance over the superior engineering of today’s technology and social networks. A more alarming issue is developing children and heavy use of mobile devices. This scares me much more, simply because these kids are growing and developing while mostly under the influence of these technologies. If adults that know better are powerless to the genius designs those companies have developed and implemented, what chance do the little ones stand?. This is mainly the parent’s fault whether they like to hear it or not, kids require attention, they get bored easily, they need to be stimulated. Parents now days find it much easier to just give their children a cellphone or table with unlimited access to this crazy thing we call the Internet, yes it will keep kids calmed and entertained but at what cost? My guess, the cost will be that child’s mental health and social future.
This is where it gets dark
So you made it this far. Now we get to what I really think of whats going to happen. Honestly, I believe if things don’t change the future generations are quite literally fucked. Excuse the word but I couldn’t think of a better one. A good chunk of my childhood, up until I was 12 years old I lived in a very poor country. Thinking back I can say that the only good thing that came out of that was that kids didn’t have technology. We were actually forced to go outside and play with our friends, something that in every generation that followed there is less and less of, and for this one thing I was grateful to have experienced it. I don’t see this happening as new generations are born, and as social species it will hugely impact our future negatively.
Conclusion
Technology is amazing and there is no denying this. I look forward to seeing what other scientific discoveries we make, what new technologies that have positive impacts are created. There is no shortage of excitement in what the future has to offer, my biggest concern is and always will be the negative impacts we see some of these technologies have on our social lives.
Thank you for reading.
