Tortures of Technology

This week I was on The Atlantic looking for an article to read for my history class when I found one about technology and the effects it has on youth. When I first saw it, I didn’t want to click on it because this topic is overdone. Every other day we hear from our teachers, parents, and advisers that youths use technology too much. My psychology teacher even calls computers “devil’s candy” (Ms.Spencer). But, I clicked on the article anyway.

The article is titled: “Your Smartphone Can Reduce Your Brainpower, Even If It’s Just Sitting There” by Robinson Meyer. The article is about attached adolescents are to their phones and computers, even if they are dead. Even if the phone is not going off, there is some need for people to check it.

I am at a restaurant, I am relaxed, and I am about to start lying to myself. I’m not going to check my phone, I tell myself. (My companion’s phone has appeared face-down on the table, too.) I’m just going to have this right here in case something comes up. Of course, something will not come up. But over the course of the next 90 minutes, I will check my phone for texts, likes, and New York Times push alerts at every pang of boredom, anxiety, relaxation, satiety, frustration, or weariness. I will check it in the bathroom and when I return from the bathroom (Meyer).

It has been proven through studies done at Journal of the Association for Consumer Research that even if a phone is not near a person, it is consciously on their mind. Every other second people reach for their phones or think about what is going on digitally and are not focused on the real world. This leads to not only bad social skills, but it also leads to bad memorization and attention abilities, cognitive skills, and addiction (to the phone that is). People in the 21st century have become addicted to their phones and people can’t imagine “getting through a normal day without my cell phone” (Meyer).

I related to this so much when I was reading it. I have gone to dinner with my friends and we have been like “let’s not use our phones”. Ten minutes into dinner, we are all on our phones, literally texting each other (talk about bad social skills). Then when the food comes, we all have no more notifications on our phones and want to eat. So while we are eating, I pick up my phone (even though there was no notification) and check for something to look at, there is usually nothing, and then put it down. 2 minutes later, I pick up my phone again and know that there is no notification because why would there be, and look for the notification. This cycle is never ending and then I realize that no one is going to text me, so I don’t check my phone for like 2 hours. And then in that 2 hour time period, I have 15 missed calls from Mom and 180 texts about upcoming plans and 30 snapchats, and then I realize I can’t be on my phone for 2 hours. Which causes me to fall back into the cycle.

However, this does not fly at dinner with my family. Whenever we go out to dinner as a family, we have a rule where we have to put our phones face down on the table on Do Not Disturb. The first person to pick up their phone from the middle has to pay the bill. It allows for some separation from our phones and is actually really nice.

The whole time while reading this article I was like, “that’s so true” and I really didn’t notice that I was doing it until I read it. By realizing this, it makes me understand how people fall into the cycle of checking their phone every 5 minutes even if there are no notifications. I was not consciously aware that I was doing this and now I am trying to avoid it. Let’s just say it is not going well and I am still addicted to my phone.

Meyer, Robinson. “Your Smartphone Reduces Your Brainpower, 
      Even If It's Just Sitting There.” The Atlantic, Atlantic
      Media Company, 3 Aug. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/technology
      /archive/2017/08/a-sitting-phone-gathers-brain-dross/535476/.