Smartphone Anniversary

We just passed an anniversary, but I am not celebrating. It's the end of the first 10 years with the so called "Smart phone". What a name for it. It fits in that the phone is surely smarter than the users of it.  The beginning of the cell phone rage was the I Phone, which has sold over 1 billion units since it began the smart phone hysteria. At the end of this year, the prediction is that one in every three humans on the planet will have a smart phone. I will not be one of them.

Like most new technology the smart phone is an addictive property. TV, as an example of precious addictive technology, was that way as well Yet one using a TV set does so in his or her home and does not consider it to be essential to life as we know it. Clearly the phone that connects to the internet and is portable is as addictive to some as is cocaine to an addict.

No doubt the technology of those phones is good, but the world still has not settled on an etiquette for use, both from a societal and individual standpoint.  Though users need limits the makers of that technology keep tantalizing them more and more with updates and new uses for the phones. Just as pot can lead to cocaine, the first smart phone has led to an addiction to a phone that is irrational and in my view, not healthy to the soul. Users wait for the next new smart phone, eager to cast aside their new one as little as six months after issuance. The idea that a smart phone is outdated so soon is clearly one of perception. Thank Apple and other marketers for creating that illusion.

More people than I are pointing out the addictive property of those phones. The University of Derby, for instance, says that Smart phones are psychologically addictive, encourage narcissistic tendencies and should come with a health warning. Yes, like cigarettes that are labeled with warnings that they are hazardous to health. I like that idea. Derby did studies before making the addictive warning and found that Smart phone users spent an average of 3.6 hours a day on devices and found that 13% of participants in the study were addicted, often causing severe distraction from relationships and ‘real life’. Real life, for cell addicts, is what you get when you put away that electronic device you can't get enough of.

Just put your phone down  and observe those around you a while and you'll see that those phones use cause distraction from many aspects of  life, including employment, hobbies  study and personal relationships. I will not celebrate this anniversary. Instead. I will feel sorry for those addicts who waste time and choose  a phone instead of the real world. I  imagine them checking their phones for their posts every 5 minutes to see how many likes they have. It's pathetic.