Addicted Smartphone Syndrome

Smartphones affect almost every aspect of the average student’s life. Marvels of modern technology, something underlined by the much quoted: “your smartphone has the equivalent processing power of the computers used for the Apollo space missions”, they have revolutionised the way we interact with other human beings as well as giving us tools to accomplish a multitude of tasks. In a sense these increasingly powerful devices have freed us from a desk-bound environment, as they can fulfil many tasks that your average desktop would do. All in all it seems smartphones enrich our daily lives.

Now to the absolutely cliché question: or have they? Recent data suggests that smartphones may not really be the boon society has hoped for. A rising trend of smartphone addiction in teens in various first-world countries has led some experts to worry. More than 60 per cent of teens in the UK say they are addicted to their smartphone, and those are just the ones willing to admit to it. You might argue that smartphones increase efficiency, and I couldn’t argue against this, as they allow us to utilise the time where we are away from the desktop/laptop. Although they can also help us have fun while at our desks, if instead of studying for your exams, you play with constant vibration apps.

60 percent of teens in the UK call themselves an addict of their smartphone,

I myself have experienced a somewhat strange consequence of this addiction in Imperial. While sitting in my lecture, somewhat disillusioned by the dry lecture topic, I decided to take a look around at my fellow students to entertain myself. What I discovered surprised me somewhat. Of the 20 people in my immediate vicinity, about 16 of them had their smartphones either on their desks, laps or in their hands. Seriously people, what is the point of going to your lecture if all you are going to do is stare at your smartphone 90 per cent of the time? Are you really paying Imperial’s fees to sit in a lecture theatre and answer Facebook messages?

Life is what happens around you, while you are starting at your smartphone screen

Using your smartphone on the toilet, sleeping with your smartphone, checking your smartphone on more than an hourly basis and getting a panic attack (also known as nomophobia: no mobile phobia) if you are without your smartphone could all be symptoms of smartphone addiction. If you exhibit all of these symptoms, but remain unsure if you are addicted, try this little thought experiment: imagine a whole day where instead of your smartphone you have a feature phone (i.e. you can text and call, what phones were originally used for). Could you manage the whole 24 hours? If these thoughts alone make you start shivering and breaking out in sweat, don’t fret dear reader, for this esteemed writer himself suffers from the same condition. So what to do now? Well, as with any addiction, the key is to admit to yourself that you have it. Only then can you actually commence along the path to recovery. Start weaning yourself off your phone; do not look at it every single goddam hour, and set yourself a time limit for not using it. In fact I find lectures to be the perfect time interval for this, and it adds the benefit of enhancing my productivity.

Now I am not saying that smartphone addition is a serious problem, but when people have to introduce rules to ban smartphones from dinner dates, then something really has to be done, before all social interaction is replaced by a 4’’ to 5’’ screen. In fact the quote: “Life is what happens around you, while you are starting at your smartphone screen” perfectly describes what’s going on. People are so scared that they are going to miss out on Facebook notifications, emails and texts, that in fact they miss out on what is happening in the real world.