Smartphones have changed the world forever. It has put the whole world’s information in our pockets, connected us with others, made resources instantly available and much more. It is not even possible to list down all the benefits of a smartphone in a single post.
Apart from these, smartphones led to the creation of new industries. Many company’s flagship products are apps that runs on a smartphone and they generate billions of dollars in revenue. Those companies whose products were desktop based has shifted to smartphones to avoid missing customers.
Though the advantages of smartphones are numerous, it has some evil effects as well. We often overlook these and become addicted to it. I bet the first thing that most people do after waking up is checking for notifications on their smartphones. Yes, there can certainly be some important notifications but not all are important. Most of them are just attention grabbing ones.
Let us look at some ways in which smartphones harm us when used excessively.
Consumes our precious time
Time is the most valuable thing that we have. And when we engage in excessive use of smartphone, we lose track of time easily. Recall the incidents when you thought of using smartphone for some time, but end up using it for much longer periods. This happens to almost everybody now a days.
The notifications that we receive act as an instigator. Even if we try, when we hear that “tringg” sound, we are tempted to pick up our phones to see the notifications. App companies have dedicated marketing teams who specially decides when to trigger notifications to maximize conversion. Recall your incidents when it’s lunch time and you received notifications from your food ordering apps.
Most social media apps earn money by showing advertisements to it’s users. So naturally, they would want people to spend more time on their apps. Though some popular ones have added features which shows you your spent time, but these are just some minor tactics to preserve brand reputation.
Affects our health, especially mental health
The health effects of excessive smartphone use can’t be ignored. It is said that health is wealth. Now, looking for long hours at the smartphone screens can damage our eye sight. Not only this, it can give rise to many other eye related problems. As every body part is related, any detrimental effect to eyes will hamper our overall health.
Also long hours of staring at smartphones can make us physically exhausted. I can recall from my experience, when social media first came and became a trend, I spent long hours at night using it and as a result woke up tired the next day.
Apart from affecting physical health, it’s effects on mental health can’t be overlooked. We can consider ourselves healthy only when we are physically as well as mentally fit. Now a days, mental well being is on focus given the rising cases of anxiety and depression.
One incident we can all relate is that many times we see social media posts of other people and feel that their lives are way better than ours. It is human nature, nothing wrong with that. But the problem is, everything posted on social media isn’t real. People only share the good experiences on social media. This gives rise to comparison and thus affect people’s mental health.
Engaging in useless and harmful activities
When smartphone addiction rises, we tend to try out each and every feature and app available. In this process, we end up using apps which are not appropriate for us, or which doesn’t add any value. Instead, it changes our thought process.
There have been various cases when such apps(will not name the apps) have caused major hamper to people and society as a whole. People even had lost lives. Also, malicious apps try to trap the user into entering or uploading sensitive data and later misuses the data and even harass the user.
HOW TO TACKLE THESE
- Mute notifications from unnecessary apps.
- Use features like screentime to limit and monitor your smartphone usage.
- If possible, turn off your phone and keep it aside when not required.
- Unfollow social media pages and accounts that act as a distraction for you.
- Use glasses when using smartphone.
- Uninstall apps which add no value to your life.
- Install only secured apps through official app stores.
- Remember that social media isn’t real life, and everyone has their own struggles.
Hope you liked the post. Thanks for reading this, but I hope you are doing it in a managed way 🙂
