As an 18-year-old girl, I find myself constantly on my smartphone, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than 30 minutes without looking at my phone. I find that I do this not really because I want to but because it’s a really bad habit. I recently read a compelling article titled "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?," and I was taken aback with how much it made me think about my own habits about cell phone use.
A quote from the article that really stuck with me was, “Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone.” This is very true in my own experience because I’m constantly using my smartphone for everything, and when there is a bad signal I find myself getting annoyed because I feel like I’m missing out on something that is going on, on my phone.
As a child, I didn’t grow up with a phone, internet, or cable. Once I hit seventh grade though that changed because I was going to a school in a different city than my own and I needed the internet more frequently to do homework assignments unlike I had to in elementary school. There was a noticeable change in me because of new exposure to technology, and I realize now that I am older I was less engaged with my surroundings.
My parents told me that they hated that I needed the internet for even my homework because when I was a child I was content in reading books and going outside for fun. Now my fun consisted of playing computer games or looking at a screen.
Another noticeable change happened to me when I was exposed to Instagram. The app was almost like an addiction for me, I loved it. Distinctly, in seventh grade, I remember spending most of my Christmas break scrolling through posts on the app wondering what was going on in the lives of my favorite celebrities rather than worrying about what was actually happening in my reality.
Reading through the article actually made me take a step back and look at all the instances in my life where I have ever felt like I have missed out. What made me analyze this, in particular, is this quote, “The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.”
I found that very interesting because in ninth grade one of the things that happened to me was that I constantly felt depressed. I consistently missed school, I left early constantly because the thought of going to school made me so anxious that I would just need to sleep.
Looking at it now, part of that definitely has to do with technology, that’s all I did freshman year of high school, I looked at my iPad and played mindless computer games and watched Youtube videos. These things weren’t really making me happy like I thought they were.
After freshman year though, I decided to turn my habits around a little bit, I stopped using my iPad to take notes, I was less engaged because I realized what screen time was doing to me and my engagement with the outside world.
Reading the article made me decide to take a whole day where I didn't use my phone or laptop. It was honestly one of the most fulfilling days I had experienced in college. I went to the gym, I outlined a chapter of my history book, and I took an amazing nap. It was a day in which I wasn't consumed by what was going on in other people's lives.