Is phone addiction the next obesity?
I know it sounds extreme, but it could be a real question in the not so distance future. The companies who first produced processed, convenience foods didn’t consider the dire consequences their innovations would have. Fast-forward fifty years and I don’t need to reel off obesity statistics. The UK is furiously in reaction mode to tackling it. Money and resource is being pumped in to try and reverse the new eating habits that got us here. Think of all the paleo and clean eating ‘gurus’ who have made a fortune from telling people to simply eliminate processed foods. We are at a point where we have to pay people to reteach us how to eat **hand smack in the face emoji**.
In twenty years time will we be paying ‘gurus’ to help us unlearn how we interact with our phones?
Lets be clear I am no technophobe. I believe the Internet, smartphones and social media have changed our world for the better. I have learnt from incredible people I wouldn’t have discovered in the real world. I laugh out loud on a daily basis because of memes. For that I am grateful. It has launched movements, created new career paths and opportunities for people to pursue their dreams.
BUT as with the food industry, perhaps the founders didn’t fathom just how much these innovations would transform society. At least not at the pace it has. Governments and policy makers are struggling to keep up. On average we spend four hours on our phones a day; our eyes are looking at a screen rather than at other people. And quite rightly — it does everything for us. My phone enables me to: talk to not one but all of my favourite people, read articles, make notes, email, take pictures, write cringe captions, listen to music, sort out my finances and track my steps. No human can compete with that.
It’s no surprise we’re addicted — and don’t say you’re not because you are. We all are. We don’t think of our new habits as unhealthy because they are now normal (everyone else does it). We no longer have to ever be bored so we no longer know how. We’re waiting for a train or a friend; we have a quick scroll of the virtual world. If the person we are with takes their phone out, we don’t deem it rude, we instinctively reach for ours rather than sit and wait for them to finish.
While it is too soon to know what the long-term effects will be, we are aware there will be consequences. We are cautious when it comes to kids screen time and digital detoxes were a popular New Year’s resolution. Out of interest last year, I downloaded an app to track the amount of time I spent staring at my screen. It worked for a bit, but it drained my battery so fast I wasn’t able to do all the other ‘important’ shit on my phone. Oh, the irony. Thankfully, Apple has introduced the Screen-time feature so there is now no hiding from the reality of our hours spent scrolling. Beyond being a massive time waster, what are some of the issues we are already starting to face?
Forever Distracted
It’s taken me far too long to write this than it should. While I have been writing this very paragraph, I’ve Whatsapped at least twice, scrolled through Instagram and spent 20 minutes reading other articles on Medium. Thanks to the computing power we have in our pockets, the world really is our oyster. Our phones should be the ultimate productivity tool but instead it’s made us ultimate procrastinators.
Building something of real value is a long and sometimes boring process but many of us no longer have the patience for that (if you’ve read this far, kudos to you — 50% of people won’t). Wealth, success, love, a PB all take time to achieve but we are wired for instant gratification and technology has capitalised on this big time. We receive immediate feedback on our posts and selfies that provide us with bursts of happy chemicals and we’re hooked. We follow social media celebrities for their get rich quick schemes or get fit in five days wanting and expecting the same instant results.
With these newly adopted behaviors, I do wonder how the next generations are going to create anything meaningful? Will modern works of art be a meme that broke the Internet? With such limited attention spans, how are we expected to create meaningful relationships when everyone is after attention over an authentic connection?
Just One More Hit
In 2019, everyone’s online experience is now completely unique. Let that sink in. Yes, there will be that viral video that the whole world will see but there has never been a more personalised medium. We’ve all had the experience of talking about something with a friend, the next time you open your phone, you are served an ad for the very thing you were talking about.
I’m not going to go all ‘they’re listening’ conspiracy but every single time we tap, like, scroll we are giving data for these apps to sell to their customers. We, users of social media, Google etc. are the product being sold as a data point. It is in these companies interest to create a bespoke feed that entices us to engage more and more so we don’t even realise we’ve whittled away 40 minutes liking Cocker Spaniels.
It’s All in Your Head
So what? There’s no real harm – it’s another form of entertainment that can target us with advertising in the same way as TV, film and radio have done. They haven’t caused any real issues apart from making us less active. Aside from neck ache, impaired vision and perhaps a permanent claw for a hand, there is no apparent threat to our physical health from excessive phone consumption.
It is, however, impacting our mental health in a way that no tech has done before. Again, I don’t need to reel off the anxiety and depression statistics – particularly within teenagers and young adults.
Social media has been blamed as the cause but at the same time it’s power has helped raise awareness of mental health issues. Previous generations didn’t have access to tools that could help diagnose how they were feeling and connect them with others going through a similar experience. Is there really a huge increase? Or is it because there is less stigma more people are seeking professional help which provides accurate statistics?
Either way constant consumption is leading to constant comparison, which apparently is the “thief of joy” – Theodore Roosevelt. Despite knowing that everyone only portrays their best self, we compare every aspect of other people’s filtered lives with the reality of ours. This isn’t doing the younger generation’s self-esteem any good.
So, what’s the answer? As with anything that’s potentially addictive, the solution would be mindful consumption in moderation. Yet, the UK struggles to find balance in our diets even when we know the consequences (gaining fat) will make us miserable. How are we going to strive for balance with something that’s ‘just a bit of fun’ and the consequences are ‘all in our head’…
(If you’ve got to the end of this article without being distracted then you probably won’t be forking out for a digital detox doctor.)
