Smartphone addiction: when we cross the lines of politeness

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

According to the research company Synovate Comcon for the first half of 2015, 53% of Russian residents use conventional mobile phones, and 49% - smartphones. There are 22% more smartphone users than in 2013. Gadget addiction is a subject of research, jokes, and serious fights. We will figure out in what cases sticking to the phone offends the people around you.

Before figuring out when and where it is better to put a smartphone in your pocket, let's assess the scale of gadget addiction. In the graph, you can see the percentage of smartphone users in the 18 to 55+ age groups.

Most of the smartphone zombies are, of course, in the 18 to 34 age group. I am also among them. We don't start the day with a shower or breakfast, but by checking Twitter. It's like the fear of missing out on something interesting. I didn't look at the social network in the morning - I missed a fresh meme and you don't always understand what your friends and colleagues are joking about.

There is always a smartphone charge in the bag, because even turning it off for a couple of hours knocks us out of a rut. A new term has appeared - "the syndrome of constant online presence", and heroic experiments like "How I gave up my smartphone for two days and what came of it" are popular among bloggers and large portals. They are all alike: in the first hours without a smartphone, the experimenter is in a panic.

How do I listen to music? How to get to the desired place without a navigator? How to inform that you are late for an appointment? Where is the nearest ATM to withdraw money from the card? How to block a lost bank card? Where to have coffee nearby? How to call loved ones if you don't know a single number by heart? What happens in the world? What to do while using public transport ?!

It turns out that we cannot even spend 20 minutes of a bus or metro ride alone with our own thoughts and the people around us. A smartphone helps to isolate oneself from the outside world, to escape from reality that one does not always want to observe, to abandon the general conversation when one does not want to take part in it.

How do others perceive the care of a smartphone?

Interesting data from the Pew Research Center study, presented in the graph below. Using a smartphone in transport, at public events, in a queue is considered normal and does not offend others. But at family dinners and meetings, in the opinion of the majority, it is unacceptable.

For a group of people under 34, it is not considered rude to be distracted by a smartphone during a general conversation. At the same time, as soon as one of the interlocutors opens Instagram, the rest follow his example. In about five minutes the party turns into a smartphone party. We joke about unbridled fun, but we can no longer tear ourselves away from the screens. However, we admit that gadgets do not allow us to have a complex interesting conversation. We seem to be moving in short dashes - exchanged a few phrases and buried ourselves in the phones, losing the thread of the conversation.

Is it bad to be stuck in your smartphone all the time?

This is neither good nor bad, it is natural. It could not have happened in any other way. A new generation is growing, which will be the same. After all, we ourselves give children gadgets so that they calm down for a couple of hours. According to a study by Hi-Tech. Mail. Ru, 69% of children start using gadgets at preschool age.

You decide for yourself whether you want to spend so much time, buried in your smartphone. As noted in experiments to give up gadgets for a couple of days, relief comes after a panic attack. As if you were let off the leash. You start to notice amusing things around, the chats do not bawl annoyingly, and it turns out that there are a lot of interesting thoughts in your head that you simply did not have time to think out.

Try to turn off the Internet on your gadget at least for the weekend and not touch toys. You will have a couple of hours of free time, and your brain will reboot by the beginning of the work week and be filled with fresh unusual impressions. True, your friends will be worried when they see that you have been offline for more than a day.