Hello

 

Have you ever noticed how often you and others access your smartphone during one day? You may not actually even be aware of how often you check for a message, go on social media, play a game, send an email, or even use the phone as a phone! More and more people are becoming addicted to their phones. This isn’t just a turn of phrase, some people literally have a habit that causes them to function way below par, and actually gets in the way of them getting as much out of life as they could and should be.

 

Many young people simply cannot imagine being without their smartphones. This pandemic has wide-reaching consequences. On a purely physiological level, sleeping next to a smartphone, which many people do, is really not a good idea. Despite what you may have been led to believe, this is untested technology. In other words the radiation that is emitted by these phones, placed near your head whilst you are asleep, for days, weeks, months, and years at a time has not been the subject of proper research. Yes, the communications companies, who have of course a very vested interest in keeping you ‘addicted’ (to your phone and to their upgrades) can infer from experiments with say mice, what 30 years worth of being shackled to your own personal irradiator may have an impact on.

 

However, that thirty year experiment with 4G or 5G hasn’t been conducted with people, because it is happening right now. You are the guinea pig (or mouse!).  And bear in mind that any research that has been carried out is highly likely not to have included the ‘layering’ effects of Wi-Fi, cell phone towers (soon to be a 5G ‘lamppost’ right outside your bedroom window) and smart metres.  I would suggest that the feverish struggle to meet ‘next month’s targets’, has resulted in many many people, unwittingly in most (but not all) cases, filtering out the very real dangers of such hitherto unseen levels of radiation in the daily lives of much of the population.

 

Sir Isaac Netwon said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and what the physiological ‘reaction’ to decades of this additional type of ‘exposure’ will be, we simply do not know.  What is known however, is that humans have not evolved over the last few thousand years thriving in a culture where wearing a battery powered microwave oven stuck in defrost-mode and sellotaped to their head was de rigeur.

 

Apart from the physiological dangers inherent in the over-use of smartphones, there are psychological dangers. We know for example that depression is on the increase, and some commentators have laid part of the blame for this on social media and how it can cause us to be less, rather than more connected. However, social media can be a good thing. The use of smartphones can also be extremely useful. We can feel more connected in ways that we couldn’t before. All things in balance is the key here I suspect.

 

You may well have seen photos of a group of people, often a family, sitting at a table in a restaurant, with not one person looking up and towards the other people who are present. Everyone is looking downwards at their phones. And I think that when we get to that level of ‘disconnectedness’ we are in real danger of doing ourselves, and others, harm. When we cease to engage with the reality around us, the people with whom we should be ‘present’, we can begin to live our lives entirely ‘online’ and there are many dangers inherent with that approach.

 

There have been examples of more than one social media ‘star’ who has deleted their account in recent times, sometimes because the pressure of continuing to project ‘fake perfection’ on say Instagram has become too much, or because a plague of twittering locusts has taken one too many bites out of their psyche. Apple, to their credit, has been taking steps to allow users to switch off alerts and silence calls more easily. However Apple have a different profit model from say Facebook. Sites like Facebook have a vested interest in getting you hooked and not letting you go. Its how they make their money, and whilst making money from advertising isn’t in of itself a bad thing, to what extent (think psychological tricks to get you addicted) a company will go to keep you there, and what it will do with the information that it trawls from you (forget thee not Cambridge Analytica) is another matter. Some such companies are not necessarily entirely benevolent. And that’s putting it politely. There are of course thousands of people who are employed in the communications/social media arena who are there to make whatever positive difference they possibly can. On the other hand, the leaders of those companies are where the tone is set. I have never met Mark Zuckerberg (although I have actually met Brent Spiner) but I would love to, if for no other reason then to compare the slightly odd performance by Mr Zuckerberg during his Senate (some would say light) grilling, with the actual person, and to get a sense of who this fellow actually is.

However, that may or may not happen, and so it’s important to focus in the first instance on what we can immediately control. What can we do to use the smartphone in a smarter way? Here are some tips:

1) Don’t look at your phone (or indeed laptop, tablet) within an hour of trying to get to sleep (it’s the blue light and/or the ‘stimulation’ of emails etc.)

 

2) Don’t sleep with the phone within twelve feet of your head. It doesn’t sit there totally inert!

 

3) If you actually use the phone as a phone, use it in ‘speaker mode’ that way you won’t be pressing it against your skull (which by the way the manufacturers do not recommend amyway).

 

4) Reduce the number of your social media contacts. Some psychologists suggest that the maximum number ‘friends’ that we can cope with in our ‘tribe’ is around 150 to 200.

 

5) If you are watching TV with others, then watch the TV! If the program doesn’t suit, then go and do something else. One of the benefits of TV can be the shared experience, and if you aren’t mentally in the room (i.e. you are watching something else on your phone) you are missing out on that. P.S. don’t watch too much TV either!

 

6) Spend time physically being in the presence of others. And when you do, switch off your phones. It is not only distracting, it is also rude, and you are not processing the full experience of the conversation in a way that you might. It’s possible for example that you are missing out on some clues that would suggest that this person might be upset. Or perhaps they have some important news to tell you, but they decide not to because you appear ‘distracted’.

 

7) Get outdoors. Get outdoors as much as you can, not only is the fresh air and exercise good for us, it can have a calming effect, which is very often not the case when engaged in the digital world.

 

8) Always remember that who you are as a person, the benefits that you can bring to the world and to your friends, is not measured by likes (or indeed dislikes) and tweets or retweets. This should have no bearing on your sense of self worth. Last months ‘twitter storm’ is often long forgotten, like digital fish and chip paper, and you should forget about it too.

 

9) If you find yourself being badly let down by a communications or social media provider, then walk away. There are always other options, and if you continue to ‘support’ any nefarious practices, then those practices will continue. ‘But I am only one person’ you may say to yourself. Yes, but if everyone thinks like that, then nothing will ever change. If you can’t walk away, then cut down on your usage, drastically. It will do you the world of good. And remember, compared to what you get from them, what you provide some of these companies is actually priceless. Information? No…your time!

 

Best wishes

Mike