Photo by Fabio Principe - Getty Images
Teens looking at smartphones
If your primary relationship is with a smartphone, you have issues. Preposterous? Considering the average adult spends seven hours a day face-planted on screens, often smartphones, and that adolescents log even more screen time, there clearly are folks who fit this characterization. An average user accesses their smartphone 352 times a day, a fourfold increase since 2019.
If extraterrestrials are watching us, they’ve probably concluded that, while some humans relate to each other extensively, an increasing number are more engaged with their handheld devices. Observing us gazing deeply into the screens of these itty-bitty machines, smiling, frowning, awing, crying and talking, they may surmise we’re more comfortable with smartphones than each other.
E.T. would also notice that humans touch their little beeping devices far more than most people touch each other while interacting. They might deduce there is greater affection between Homo sapiens and e-machines than between two members of our species. And, in some cases, they might be right.
Fully Oblivious
Recently, I saw a group of teens sitting on a park bench, all fixated on their respective phones. They were not talking to each other and seemed oblivious to their lovely surroundings on a beautiful day. Each appeared fully engaged with some app, text message, video or pic. When I told another parent about this, she said, “My bet is they were all texting each other.”
Anecdotal observations suggest many people find smartphones more interesting than their fellow hominids. And, not surprisingly, this has a basis in brain science. Our neural networks orient toward novel and fast-paced visual and auditory stimulation, which these handheld computers readily provide. Humans? Well, after a while we get used to each other and the brain slips into “been there, done that” mode. You can’t create novelty in a person by downloading a new app to their brain, at least not yet. But doing so on our phones is easy and quick.
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Now, calling these devices “smartphones” is an oxymoron. First off, making phone calls is far down the list of most frequent activities on these hummers. Secondly, they are to hell and gone from smart. To paraphrase anthropologist Gregory Bateson, I’ll believe a smartphone is intelligent when you ask one a question and it replies, “That reminds me of a story.” From what we’re told, AI is working on it, but so far, smartphones do not display human intelligence and creativity. Yet, to many of us, their mesmerizing functionality makes them more engaging and entertaining than smart humans.
Easy to Control
Who knows, maybe the allure is because smartphones are dumb, and, therefore, easy to control, creating a sort of interpersonal power trip. We get to manage and manipulate our own little reality whizzing about on that eye-squinting screen. Rarely are people around us so accommodating. And a smartphone is very accepting. It doesn’t care if you’ve got bad breath, an anxiety disorder or poor taste in attire.
Nonetheless, like an attention grabbing third wheel, a smartphone can disrupt a couple’s relationship. One study showed just by placing your device on the table next to you and your companion (you don’t even have to look at it), you diminish engagement and rapport. It’s as if the smartphone is a third person that has a relationship with one of the people (its owner) but not the other, you.
If you think I’m overstating my case, consider this. If you are infatuated with your smartphone, then you’ll probably drive back home—heaven knows how many miles—to retrieve it from the loneliness of the kitchen counter where you errantly left it. Would you do the same for a packed lunch or matching socks?
I’m no Luddite. Far from it. But if I start feeling more connected to my iPhone than the people around me, it’s time to unplug. Failure to do so begets this observation from humanistic psychologist Rollo May: “Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we do not experience it.” Or, too often, each other.
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