In the past few years, as smartphones have become more & more ubiquitous, I've become aware of a growing sentiment that these devices are somehow robbing us of our basic humanity. If any of you have ever criticized a friend or acquaintance for always being on their phone, you may consciously or subconsciously subscribe to this view.
I'm here to refute this, insofar as a humble blogger with a laughably low share of web traffic can.
First, I'd like to point out the obvious fact that people who criticize others for overusing their phones are among the biggest hypocrites in existence. Everyone is on their phone virtually every spare second of the day. Admit it. You do it too.
Now that that's out of the way...
I think the idea that these devices are somehow bad for us must come from one of two things (or probably both): the fact that people simply look disengaged from the world when they're hunched over a small rectangular piece of plastic; or the fact that some of us concentrate so single-mindedly on these devices as to forget things like our basic safety, i.e. texting and driving. (an amusing note: I typed the word "texting" and blogger noted it as a spelling error with the traditional red squiggly underlining. Amusing that that word and all its derivatives aren't yet regarded as a proper word by all programs)
As to the disregard of one's basic safety, I have no refutation. It is obviously a problem that we must overcome, and there is no excuse for endangering yourself and others. But that's why wearable technology is so cool (more on that in a moment).
As to the simple distaste for seeing a person focused on a handheld object rather than the world around them, I feel that it might be a fundamental misapprehension of what these devices are.
A phone looks like a mere object. To eschew perception of the world at large for a mere object would indeed be foolhardy, but the fact is that these devices are not mere self-contained objects, but portals into a world that is much larger than one's current environs. Chances are your immediate environment is familiar to you. Why waste precious seconds of your mental life observing the familiar? Why not interact with things beyond yourself instead?
Now, if those things are escapist distractions like Imgur or Angry Birds, I actually quite agree that spending too much time on your phone robs you of something. However, if you're reading the New York Times or perhaps an ebook version of Dracula, the criticism loses some of its efficacy. The smartphone, like all human contrivance, can be used for good or ill - it has no inherent morality. It's simply a matter of what one chooses to do with it.
A matter of weeks ago, I downloaded a game called Tiny Tower. In this game, you earn money by selling items from stores in a virtual building. With the money, you build more floors and populate them with more stores and more tenants. Gameplay consists almost entirely of waiting for people to board the elevator, directing the elevator to their desired floor and clicking on a store to restock it's wares. In other words, it's mind-numbing crap.
I was under the spell of this game for quite some time before I realized how wasteful it was. It's one of those games that sends you notifications asking you to play it; informing you that one of your stores needs restocking, or that your most recent addition has completed construction. I wasted countless minutes of my mental life being numbed by this game.
I finally realized that all that game (and all games like it) really do is provide a healing salve for ordinary boredom. But to paraphrase a very astute observation from a very unlikely source, being bored is the signal that it's time to do something creative, or to learn something. It's your brain's way of telling you there is room for improvement. If you spend all of your "bored time" being soothed into catatonic ineptitude, you will find one day that you aren't very good at anything. These types of games are electronic weed. They make you stupider.
I've replaced my electronic weed with two new things: FitBrains and DuoLingo. FitBrains is like Lumosity.com, except it works on Android phones. DuoLingo is like Rosetta Stone, but it's free. I'm learning Spanish a few minutes a day. I am also filling many spare minutes reading random Wikipedia articles.
Everybody has these minutes. And many of us spend them playing games like Tiny Tower. But I have enough faith in humans to say that one day, soon enough, another trend will emerge. It might not overtake the electronic weed (after all the one thing almost all people agree upon is that there are more stupid people than smart people in this world), but I think it will be a significant trend nonetheless. I think some people will wise up and say, "Hey, why don't I use these spare seconds to improve myself in some way?"
And that is one very big reason why smartphones are good. Because in the past, if you wanted to improve yourself, you had to seek out an expert, often pay them for their time, and devote significant portions of your life to the endeavor. Even in the digital age, you used to have to go sit at a computer and not do other things like do laundry or ride the bus. Now in the smartphone age, there are a million ways to learn and experience more, and you can do it a few seconds at a time, while still going about your daily life. You just have to make the smart decision to use your time wisely.
Another aspect of the smartphone experience that often falls under criticism is the constant attention paid to Social Networks. I, for one, am a huge advocate of the social network. In the age of Facebook, I now know more about what's going on in my friend's lives that I ever have. I feel more in touch with the people I like and love than before I joined Facebook. What harm can come from being more in touch with people? And while every thought may not need recording for posterity, what possible harm can it do?
I think the criticism comes from the narcissism inherent in the social media experience. One must tacitly say "Hey, look at me! This is what I'm thinking!" Again, I invoke the hypocrisy retort here. Everyone wants to be known. Facebook and social networks like it allow us to feed this instinct in a passive manner. The average person can subdue the basic human need to draw attention to themselves with a few posts a week. I view it as a healthy way of diverting a natural instinct into a harmless activity, rather than allow it to build into bad social behavior. And social networks like Pinterest serve an additional purpose; they extend the reach of your memory. I don't know how to build a vertical garden, but I pinned it, and I can know it any time I wish.
Either the above is the case, or social media critics must view interactions on Facebook as somehow "less real" than conversations using our vocal chords. I would respond that people have been communicating via the written word almost as long as we've been using our voice boxes. The fact that the words no longer have to be of any great import, and the audience no longer has to go to any great effort to receive them seems like a good thing to me. I feel like if Facebook conversations are "less real" than physical interactions, then writing a letter by email is "less real" than if you had used the post office and written the letter by hand. We have always interacted in different degrees of reality. Seeing a sign someone put up isn't as "real" as having them tell you to STOP or that the 7-11 is CLOSED. Why would you want it to be? Not all interactions require the full level of reality to be meaningful, and I think this is especially true of the passing observations we post to Facebook. But by virtue of our having access to them, by virtue of their being expressed at all, do we know know one another better? I have an old work acquaintance that posts recipes and culinary accomplishments regularly, yet we never talked about these things when we worked together. Do I not know her better for seeing these posts and pins?
If anything, I think the speed and ease with which we access each other's words makes these interactions more real. Rather than wait for your letter to arrive, or for a convenient time to come when we can meet and talk, I get a beep in my pocket and I have received the information you wished to convey in a matter of seconds. Where is the harm in easy flow of information? True, not all of it is of much worth, but what of that? It's not as if any precious resources were expended in the creation of it. Again, where is the harm?
If all you do with your phone is play Candy Crush and take selfies, then it's easy to think that these devices are bad for us. But if you choose to do something worthy with the brilliant technology you hold in your hand, then you must realize, as I do, that this is the future we've always dreamed of. We have the privilege of having the wealth of all human knowledge in our pockets at all times, and we may transfer it into our brains at any time we wish, with a minimum of fuss. We have everyone we care about in our hands, and while it may not measure up to the experience of actually being in their presence, we can still reach out and touch them any time we want, and with smaller concerns the lighter touch of social media is, in a way, more appropriate.
Now that these capabilities are being built into wearable technology like Google Glass, Galaxy Gear and Airo, it's only getting easier. And less dangerous! If we all had Google Glass, we could text and drive to our heart's content without ever taking our eyes off the road. I, for one, look forward to a day when we can weave these technologies into our very flesh, and we needn't ever be separated from them.
To have all this power is a privilege, not a burden. It's the future, people. It's coming, whether you like it or not. Yes, there will be some speedbumps on the way. And some casualties (like perhaps my entire trade). But you might as well ride the wave, or you'll get pulled down by the undertow.
...Oh and hey, if you wanted to spend some of those minutes reading my short stories it definitely won't hurt you. Fiction is good for the brain too.
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