Let's face it- more often than not, the majority of people carry their cell phones glued to their hands at all hours of the day (me being one of those people). We as humans rely on our devices for so many things in our everyday lives. With the incredible variety of smartphones, we are now able to do so much more than make phone calls. All day long we are sending emails or updating Facebook and Instagram. Connections are kept constant on all forms of electronics to the point where we find ourselves premeditating captions for a photo to be posted later on that day, even keeping ourselves up for hours at night staring at a blaring cell phone screen. It is an ongoing problem for adults in the United States and the issue is only getting worse.
A study done by the Pew Research Center found that ninety-one percent of adults in the United States own a cell phone. These adults found themselves using their cell phones in almost every situation; emergencies, free time, even while driving. Although some parents might complain at the amount of time their child spends on their smartphone, adults have just as hard of a time keeping that device away. While they may use their devices for different reasons than teens, responding to that email or reading that one article seems just as important to them as checking Instagram is to a teenage girl.
With this constant usage of electronic devices, it is wondered if it is hurtful to a person's health or even well-being. The prohibition of cell phones in certain areas can cause anxiety for some people because they do not have access to their rectangular piece of comfort. Fifty-six percent of teenagers in the United States admit that they spend too much time on their smartphone (CNN). For a developing brain, this could be extremely detrimental to how a person behaves in certain social situations in the future. The most common issue is that conversations behind an electronic device become more comfortable than those that happen face-to-face. As a result, we seem to forget how to communicate with one another.
Think of the last time you sat down for a meal with a group of people. How many of you sat looking at your cellphones for the duration of the meal? Your answer is probably "all of us." As humans, we find comfort in our material possessions, and for most of us our comfort lies in our smartphones. This means that when a conversation dies down or becomes uninteresting, we automatically pick up our devices and distract ourselves from that awkward silence that we are afraid of.
While social media and cellular communication can be extremely useful and sometimes crucial, there are so many negative factors that we need to think about before spending an hour or two just scrolling through a Twitter feed. When we consider how much of human interactions are disappearing due to smartphones, we can see just how much we are consumed by our technology. I encourage everyone to put down their smartphone or tablet, turn to the person next to you and smile at them. Start a conversation, get to know them a little more. I promise that you can learn so much more about a person by talking to them instead of looking at their Facebook profile.
