Well, technically it’s both YES and NO. We Gen-Xers , live in the Era of technology and we do spend 5 hours everyday on our Smartphones every single day according to research conducted by British psychologists.
I myself start using my phone when I wake up and put it down just before going to dreams.I usually spends using my phone 3-4 hours a day just for checking my Social Media Accounts and my Mails and everything.
And I am pretty sure most of the Gen-Xers like me ends up doing the same thing everyday. You may even spend more time than me because i am not into social media totally.
I was going through the pros and cons of technology when I started thinking what bad effects does our phones have in our live apart from Radiations.
Then I found a study Conducted by Dr.Jean Twenge which was published on The Atlantic Magazine where she explained the study on Smartphones.
According to her studies we millennial are so emerged in our day-to-day smartphones use that we are doing less in our real live and we are focusing more and more on our virtual lives which we spend in our phones.
Below is the report of the case study of Dr.Jean Twenge:
- We Gen-Xers are spending less time with our friends and family in Real.
- We are more Depress than any other Generation which anyone has seen in last couple of decades.
- We are dating Less.
- We are having Less Sex.
- We Sleep less number of hours.
- We feel lonely and left out.
- We are more Acquainted to Depression and Anxiety
- Rate of Suicides have increased from the year 2011-2012 when the era of smartphones started building on us and when most number of smartphones sold in a year.
This where some highlights of the article which was published in the Magazine and its gone viral.
I am using phone since Class VII and most of my friends don’t own one at that point of time. Now, its straight 10 years I m having a Phones.
But does all the Studies and their Reports applies to Me or all of you reading this??
My ans is No.
I have done a through research in this and found out something and from connecting it to myself I discovered that:
Every coin has two Side: one is positive and another is negative.
It’s true most of us are engage heavily on our smartphones weather you’re checking our social feeds or you’re trying to find your Better Half on Tinder, Facebook or any other social platform. Most of the times its useless and it consumes a heavy amount of time from our life.
The Most Dangerous Weapon of Smartphone is Notifications which it provides.
For example:
Suppose you got a notification that 5 people liked your profile picture. I am pretty sure you and I will jump onto the post which is liked by those 5 people and we will see who liked it and in this process we will start surfing your social media account ending up by spending good 10-15 mins easily all because of a single notification which your smart phone fired upon you.
Multiple the time with 30 Notifications a day which is normal for the us and you will get the time which you spend in your pretty stylish and pocket heavy Smartphone.
Notifications which shows us feeds helps to release Dopamine(Hormone to release happiness in Brain Neurons). So, every time you see a notification it is the output of dopamine releasing in your brain.
Thus, it forms a unique relation between your Notification and your Dopamine which you need. And output of this is pretty simple to guess!!! you became addicted to your Smartphones.
Cure for it:
Simple lower your notifications on the apps which are least useful and more time-consuming and eats your time which you can use in better things than you doing it now.
Recent studies have shown growth in accidents and good & efficient people are dying just because they were drowning into their phones and where less focus on what was important for them to do.
Few days back, a game called Pokemon-Go was very popular and why it became popular because it took a lot of lives. People like us where playing this types of games on roads and top of the building and end up dying eventually.
Another Example, I found was with A game called blue-Whale and I was forced to think that is playing game is more important that our lives???
The time which we spend everyday diving into our smartphones???
How to use time better?
We can utilize it in much better version like go-out hang out with whoever you like, go gyming , go long drive and if all this don’t feels right and do whatever you think is right for you mental health and happiness go-out and do it apart from taking Drugs and stuffs like that.
Most of us use our phones everyday just before hitting our sleep cycle and this smartphones or laptops releases Blue Light which make us less prone to sleep thus making our sleep cycle shorter.
But, good news is there we can overcome this by doing a simple thing.
Turn on NightMode if you are using an iPhone.
Turn on Reading Mode if you an Android user.
It’s as simple as it look it will stop the emission of Blue Light and it will make our screen look more warm and our body will feel like sleeping and we sleep as simple as it sound.
Ahh, We all probably know the answer very well. It has huge benefits and those are massive benefits. If, people like us starts using our phones in a more positive and more productive manner it can do wonders.
It can bring the world to us by a single touch from apps like Safari , Google Chrome or whatever browser you feels more connected.
Now a days it help to connect to our Doctors, Hospitals or any click of a button and your medical help is good to go.
It helps us to bring our food. If, we are hungry.
It Brings us our convenience if we want to go somewhere.
It can take us to places wherever we want to go just by searching the place in our browser.
And the Best now a days it can boom and Skyrocket our earning if you know the right ways to earn money from our phone.
Of-course we need this gadget to survive in this 21st Century and to stay connected to our loved one or our clients or anyone in this planet you want to connect by video calling apps.
There are plethora of positive things that we can do with our smartphone and it wont destroy our generation and can take out the best that the world have ever seen and we can do this with all the technologies which we access .
As I said earlier above that every coin has two sides, one is positive and another is negative.
Every researcher will put forth their theory and research in-front of you and ask you to stop using your smartphone.
But we millennial are desperate and smart enough to reject their conviction of the report produced by the scientist and researchers by the positive side of these funky marvels which has changed the entire course of the planet.
Because we all know that we can reduce the usage of our smartphone or rather we can use it in more of intelligent and productive view but we can’t stop using it totally.
Here are some pros and cons I am highlighting about smartphones:
Pros:
- It can connect the world in a click of a button.
- It can help you to work from any part of the world.
- It can Help us to earn Heck of Money.
- It can Help us to stay connected with our loved ones.
- You can find whatever help you need now with the search button and now a days there are apps for everything which you can thing of.
Cons:
- Excess use of Smartphone can reduce your sleep causing depression,anxiety, increase in weight etc.
- Excess of it will start growing peer pressure in you.
- It will affect your Sex life heavily.
- It will make you feel more lonely even if you are surrounded by 1000+ friends on Facebook.
- It eats your time makes you very busy but only busy not Productive.
Just take a paper and write down what benefit and real happiness you get from your smartphone. How is it helping you to climb the ladder of success and how its bringing better aspects of life.
On the other hand write down which apps are eating up your most number of hours and in returns gives you nothing more than Virtual Dopamine.
Thus you can analyse your data and then use it for the betterment of yourself. Hence the more you invest in you the better you become.
For more details on the topic you can mail me and I will respond there.
Cheers,
Chandan
Originally published at www.eatmyhead.com