SMARTPHONE TRAPS
DIGITAL ABSORPTION
Ruwandi Perera warns against the traps of smartphones
Ever find yourself browsing Facebook, while having lunch at work? Yes, saving the wild tigers in India is important – and you must share it with as much emoticon as you can muster. But what about your co-worker, who is mulling over whether to text back that guy from the finance division, with whom she’s been secretly in love for months?
Our phones have become our best friends, at times, especially when we don’t know what to do with ourselves – like when we’re at a boring seminar, in supermarket queues or on Uber drives, and even during seemingly never-ending team meetings.
But what happens when it’s our constant companion, and when our companionship is needed by fellow human beings?
The power cuts we faced not so long ago left us literally in the dark. But amid those who longed for the power to resume, so they could get on with their digital lives, there were others who wished that outages occurred more frequently. Apparently, parents across Sri Lanka were said to have been quite content that their ‘power-less’ children were compelled to spend some quality family time!
Global studies have found that using a smartphone can offer us a sense of connectivity with others, and thus reduce our need to connect with those around with our presence. Ironically, instead of connecting, we are actually disconnecting, thanks to the false assurance that we are ‘in touch.’
Mobile phones have shrunk the world to the size of our palms; we are now more ‘connected’ than humans could have ever imagined a decade ago. Hearing your friend’s scream, as she skydives in Toronto, is wonderful; but when we do it at the expense of those who are with us, it is both unfair and rude.
Even when we’re not connected on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, today’s smartphones offer many ways to spend time alone. With interactive games, mobile journals, self-based apps, e-books and photo editors, we are never really alone… as long as our phones have sufficient battery power and a steady data connection.
However, this rather self-centred way of life has resulted in us avoiding all kinds of conversations, both physical and virtual. How many among us prefer texting to talking?
Experts say that not talking with people is detrimental to our well-being.
By not communicating (which is an activity that is three-dimensional, in full colour, real time and high resolution), we deny ourselves a core value of human survival. Sure, we are communicating with others digitally, but not in the way in which we’re biologically programmed.
Seeing all the activities of your friends as you scroll down your Facebook homepage can be engaging but equally depressing. This is especially so when you are stuck at home, working on an excel sheet, while your friends are sipping colourful cocktails on a beach. The gap between what others supposedly have and what you have can cause depression. It can increase our disconnection with the outside world.
Yet, for most of us with smartphones, it becomes increasingly difficult to not scroll down ‘one more time.’
Research reveals that some mobile users who are on social media suffer from a fear of missing out on activities that are lined up on their homepages. This creates the need for them to be constantly checking their phones – yes, even while they’re with other people, which results in them appearing selfish.
Another evil of mobile communication is that with texting, messaging and so on taking precedence over talking, the essence of two-way communication is lost. Texting can save time and money, and provide us with more control over what we want to say, and not say. In fact, many people believe that they can better express themselves via texts, than over phone conversations.
However, texting gives us an option to not reply; to disengage, if and when we feel like it. This is impossible when talking. Although this may be ideal when you are trying to shun that annoying office mate, it will impact you negatively when you are, in fact, actually conversing with someone face-to-face.
The world will not return to a ‘phoneless’ era, so it’s essential that we learn to live sensibly with this device that has become so much a part of our lives. Maintaining human relationships is essentially the core of all communications – be it verbal, digital or emotional. So being selfish, merely because we have technology in our palms, seems inhuman.
One wonders whether mobile phones have an impact on increasing divorce and suicide rates, and longer queues at psychologists and psychiatrists. After all, being alone or lonely is not very well received by our bodies, no matter what we may tell ourselves.
We should be ashamed of our incapability to balance two of our human forces – creative destruction and to be in control of our own habits over them – which are pulling in different directions. We should endeavour to be disciplined and be able to manage habits vs. necessity, satisfaction vs. peace of mind. The downturn of being always connected and answerable, the temptation to browse and respond, is the inability to live in the present, as we only focus on instant enjoyment.
Now people are exchanging ideas and feeling much happy with those at far distances with the addiction to frequenting smartphones. They are outdoing this to the extent of depriving their personal lives, ignoring the ones who are close by. In social media, on an average about 30 percent are proven to be real friends. The remaining 70 percent are mainly connected for the sake of gossiping and enhancing social media profile status, by expanding the number of connections.
Creative destruction is for innovation, but this easy-to-use all-time accessible technology, is indeed turning out to be a destruction soon. Versatile smartphones have, to date, not proven to be a paragon to morph life on earth for better living. All these are approved and allowed by us.
It makes one wonder, whether we are speedily falling behind the practices of the Stone Age era, despite the cutting edge technology of smartphones on our palm. The ‘IT’ associated with smartphones also opens up a new doorway of bad ‘habits’.
People get in to the habit of comparing, not appreciating themselves for their good traits and unique identities. Even in small gatherings, formal or informal, even the baby boomer generations seem engage with their ‘phone friend’. They take photos which are never distributed or printed (which do not move beyond the data storage devices) unlike the good old albums, which are enjoyed timelessly, reminiscing beautiful memories.
It is no wonder that disruptions to certain amenities such as power are blessings in disguise, as people are given the chance to talk and pick up the good things they have left behind. In the face of declining human relationships in spite of hyper communication, people are losing simple pleasures that carry sentimental values to enrich lives. Instead they are indulged in smartphone notifications and apps.
Some bad habits seem to be psychological, such as being overly concerned on how one looks or the ‘digital look’. The next craze and eyesore is the habit of using the selfie option as a mirror – to look the best, round the clock.
Ruwandi, you touch on a very timely topic, not just about the technology of smartphones, but the habits these devices have inculcated in us. There are many studies being conducted about how the correlation between the great ‘equalizer’ (smartphones) affect classroom performance. I know it’s a controversial topic – I covered the intersection of tech and education for a few years – but it’s something we need to address. By we, I mean parents and young adults, because we are modelling behaviours for future generations.
The epitome of human relations and communication revolves around the expression of ones’ willingness or resentment, extending compassion and thoughtfulness and exchange of ideas and interests. Human relations do not exclude body language, a powerful version of communication with gestures that speak much stronger than verbal content. Still, cutting edge technology has been secondary to talking, where the latter is still preferred with communicating up front, or face to face conversation.
Thanks to maintaining a good harmony with real life communication and smart phones, there are students who have managed to be pay gratitude to their teachers, by assisting in their research. During this period, according to them, mobiles have given them a sense of connectivity, whereas texting and sharing were neither overdone nor a hazzle, and have been done with the understanding and respect between the two parties. Digital devices can be an indirect friend, but not the real friend. Respect for each other and commitment will only stem from confidence and not from smart phone features. On top of this, investing on smart phone technology also gives both parties the chance to look beyond the fixated roles of student and teacher, which eventually add up to their human inter relations and communications.
This example can make us realise that smart phones can enhance human relations, if we are mindful with self-control and regard for others.
Studies reveal significant statistics on human interactions with mobile devices. More humans are joining the club of ‘declining attention spans’, as low as 10 seconds per human, whereas the same for a goldfish is said to be around seven seconds.
The time spent browsing the internet via mobile devices can be high as 4-6 hours per day. Apart from the exhaustion due to the information overload, such practices burden users with too many choices to select from (whereas in practicality only a few choices and actions can be productively performed by a human). An abundance of options are thrown to express and post comments and show emojis or emoticons.
A recent media article reported about an international channel which enabled users to live stream the Mosul battle on Facebook, prompting the viewers to react with a ‘like’ or an emoticon. How realistic are these, with no emotions, but emoticons.
Peoples’ overtly behaviour where they express views and concerns via smartphones, can spark a fire between nations and cause geo-political issues. Alas, when it comes to face-to-face human interactions, people seem to be blunt, fall short of integrity. Worst of all, what they convey and communicate verbally lacks substance and meaning.
It is not a surprise that there are many who frequently share over twenty posts per month, thanks to smartphones. These include pressing issues on living beings and the environment. While all that seem to be on a positive note, just wonder how many actually are concerned about these issues in real life and take a step beyond sharing, commenting or posting. In the first place, how many have actually read the content of the posts. Or perhaps, they have just scrolled down through their touch screen on their smart phones.
On the digital platform and in social media, people are behaving as good as they can ever be. In contrast, the reality is that in real life, a marginal percentage of these people are considerate of each other. There are even frequent smart phone users, who cannot take time off to acknowledge their neighbour to render a simple help. Browsing can lead to envy, entanglement and focus on trivial issues. Prolonged focussing on the touch screen causes eye strain and headaches.
Finally, smart phones have features which create psychological harm to users.