How many times have you checked your phone without really thinking about it? Let that sink in. Across the world, phones have become a constant part of our daily routine, making it hard to think for ourselves or disconnect from these soul-sucking devices.
While phones were once mainly used for calling people over long distances, the way we use them has essentially shifted. Now that they’re used for almost every task, they’ve begun to harm the mental health of users, their friends and their families. Phone addiction is a very serious mental health issue. This chronic dependency on our devices messes up our ability to focus, our emotional stability and our everyday lives.
To illustrate this, imagine a student sitting at a dinner table with their family, physically present but not so present in the mind- lost in a scroll-hole, trading real-life connections and interactions for a meaningless device. Even though they might be feeling a temporary sense of happiness from the entertainment on their screen, they’re sacrificing a valuable conversation with family members and bonds with family. Furthermore, this feeling of needing to check our phones every time we see or hear a notification isn’t just us being bored, but rather, it is a hit of dopamine, a chemical high, that’s triggered by the apps on our phone, like using social media scrolling as a distraction to trick us from being in tune with reality. The dependency on phones can affect a child’s brain because it’s still developing and doesn’t have the impulse control that adult brains do.
Consequently, it should be stopped immediately so that it doesn’t stunt their growth. In addition to this, with constant updates about streams, fashion trends and new albums coming out, it creates a sense of urgency and fear of missing out, which can lead to increased anxiety and stress.
We see this struggle in people of all ages, for instance, a manager named Jim who’s 32 years old and is so hooked that he continuously checks his phone, and at dinnertime, he spends most of his time staring at it and not paying attention to the present situation; but similarily, another example would be Jane, she’s so deep into social media that as soon as she wakes up, she immediately grabs her iPhone from the nightstand and checks for updates from her friends. Beyond these individual stories, the size of this dependency is very clear when we look at the data; studies show that an astonishing one-third of eighth graders feel as though their phones get in the way of their daily lives, and even some users are bound to their screens for up to 80 hours a week.
Admittedly, some may argue that these devices are necessary tools for modern life, ensuring safety and facilitating work connections, but they shouldn’t take over our lives. We shouldn’t be on them 80 hours a week, every day. It is true that we indeed rely on our screens for everything from school research to staying in touch with distant relatives; however, for many, they’re used for being on social media and keeping up with trends. Even though the technology could also be very helpful and resourceful. While we can appreciate the resources technology provides, we cannot use “necessity” as an excuse to continuously be on the phone for hours every week.
In order to reclaim our lives from these habits, we can start with small but powerful changes, such as putting it down when you’re at dinner or when you wake up from your bed. Instead of reaching for it, just get up and go do your daily morning routine. Additionally, we should start interacting with the people around us, instead of ignoring them when we’re out or in the house.
In the end, if we were to continue to let these dopamine “chemical highs” from our screens dictate our happiness and our focus, we have to ask ourselves, are these good-for-nothing devices in charge of our future?
