Cell phone addiction causes unwanted distraction

Cell phone addiction causes unwanted distraction

As I write this, my cell phone is resting on a small table less than a foot away. The computer I am using has all of the capabilities of my cell phone, yet for some reason I always cease my computer work and pick up my iPhone 6s to search the Internet. In reality I ended up deviating from my planned course of action, often deferring to Instagram, Facebook or Youtube, where I get sucked into an hours-long vortex of pointless web surfing. Why am I like this?

My parents have always told me that a cell phone has more germs on it than a toilet seat, so I do not understand why I, like everyone else, am socially conditioned to have it on my person at all times if it is indeed so infested. As generations came and went, each provided new, faster forms of communication. We went from pigeon carriers to mail systems, then to telegraphs and radios, and now we find ourselves with cellular devices. Cell phones have a myriad of benefits that I do not doubt in the slightest. I do believe, however, not only that we are too reliant, but also we are blind to our worship of personal devices.

The Pew Research Center published a study in 2013 concluding that 55 percent of American adults own a smartphone, which in my opinion is much more toxic than an outdated flip-phone. Smartphone ownership is especially common among young adults. These phones become chained to our bodies, never out of reach. We keep them in our pockets or in purses and bags. I physically am almost never without mine, and I do not like that.

I find it so easy to get lost in the distractions of a smartphone. They can do almost everything, and thus we rely on them for almost everything. I endlessly scroll through entertaining but pointless material on every social media platform, wasting away time when I could do something else like read a book. In a Psychology Today article, Dr. Dale Archer, M.D., discusses a newly coined fear, nomophobia, that describes the fear of not having cellular phone contact. He believes that we today consider smartphones “an extension of ourselves, a best friend, even a soul mate.” Yet these smartphones, which keep us connected to the global population, ironically distance us from our immediate surroundings.

I considered trading in my iPhone for a relatively simple flip-phone, surrendering the powers smartphones put at my fingertips. My father, however, discouraged this course of action: he says that in this tech-savvy world, there is no going back to simpler technology. Modern phones combine the functions of so many other tools and technologies. Phones today have a camera, a music player, a compass and so on. In college, all my fellow students and professors will utilize higher functioning technologies, and to toss those aside would hinder my communication with these individuals. If I cannot beat them, do I really have to join them?

I do not think so. Going forward, I am pledging to limit my cell phone use, hopefully one day work up the nerve to leave it at home or in my dorm (gasp!) as I go about the day’s business. As humans, we do not like people to control us or influence our actions. We like to have control. So why should we let a small, abiotic cell phone hinder us from truly exploring our surroundings? The screen of your phone is only a window; you have to go beyond it to truly adventure.