We’ve all seen it. Parents giving their iPads at their kids to stop them from crying, eight-year-olds religiously playing Candy Crush at restaurants, or a group of crop-top-wearing teenage girls texting without coming up for air. Children and teenagers -- and even young adults (that’s you and me) of the social-media generation – spend half their waking hours staring, mostly uselessly, at a glowing device.
The New York Times published an article this week about the effects of electronic screen addiction on teenagers and children, reporting that children eight to ten spend eight hours a day with some sort of media. But is it just kids? This article made me realize that college students and people in their 20s exhibit many of the symptoms of screen addiction as well.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone out to dinner with friends and we would just sit there scrolling through Instagram and Facebook. After we guiltily realize how antisocial we’re being, we’ll start a conversation, but any sort of awkward pause will just cause us to revert back to our phones. There are countless scenarios like this and although we know it’s bad, we just can’t seem to stop.
One of the worst ways it affects us is through distraction. When you’re constantly looking at a small gadget in your hand, you obviously can’t give your full attention to anything else -- including friends and family, class lectures, and oncoming traffic. I can guarantee that every student with a smartphone can say they have put off studying or homework to play a video game, watch a show online or Facebook-stalk someone who doesn’t know you exist.
Another reason to put down the phone is because sometimes it’s good to be bored. Of course, we rely on technology to entertain ourselves. But by observing my surroundings, people-watching or just being in my own thoughts, I learn a lot -- about people and world around me. (It’s also how some of my ideas for articles occur to me.) Instead of looking at your Pinterest boards in the Starbucks line, surprise yourself: just stop and look around for a couple of minutes.
Perhaps an overriding reason to cut back on our electronic use is because none of it is real. Who we are online isn’t really us. But we’re constantly worried about how everyone else perceives us through Instagram photos or Facebook posts. We worry about how many favorites we’ll get on a funny tweet. And we constantly look at other people’s profiles to see how they’re doing. I have been to many parties where everyone is just standing with their circle of friends, all on their phones. Later that night they all post pictures of how supposedly fun the party was. That isn’t reality.
So what can screen addicts do for help? The best thing is to ease away from it slowly. Delete a couple of apps that pull you into your phone. After deactivating some of my accounts for a couple weeks, it dawned on me how unimportant they really were. You may go through some app withdrawal, but in the end it’s a relief. And you can help your screen addict friends, too. Say things like “Hey, let’s make a plan to turn our phones off for the next hour.” Or, at a restaurant, keep everyone’s phone in the middle and whoever reaches for theirs first has to pay the bill. It’s a big, beautiful world out there. Take a look at it sometime.
