Sitting on the subway, looking down the line of vacant stares fixated on their smart phones, I wonder if the word smart is still applicable. Over the past few years, this recurring event follows me everywhere I travel. Whether it be on buses in Barcelona, trains in Turkey, classrooms in Seoul, hotels in Honolulu or restaurants in Rabat. There they are, staring blankly at their screens. More concerned with their smartphones than the world around them. Makes one wonder if our digital age is negatively impacting our ability to truly socialize with one another.  In this article, Are Smartphones Making Us Unsocial, we’ll look at recent research, statistics and findings to uncover the truth.

In a world devoid of personal contact, this wouldn’t pose a problem. If personal integration and communication wasn’t a vital part of our existence, than again no problem. We could all stare away at our little screen regardless of where we are or who’s talking to us.  However, as social beings, dependent on others to survive, we can’t overlook the importance of physical interpersonal interaction with those around us.

What about Social Media?

How many times have you been talking to someone, and look over to see their attention fixated on their phone? More willing to communicate with others, than the person right in front of them.  It’s sad how some would rather send a text, IM or Facebook post and not spend real-time in the presence of others.  Generally, I’d say there’s little true social interaction in social media. Yeah, you can communicate with friends and share your point of view, but I’d say it’s become more sectarian than social. Where people stay hidden behind a veil of digital security and say anything they want, without fear of being punched in the face.  I’d hardly call that being social.

Research seems to show we’re becoming driven apart, hyperaware and most definitely self-absorbed. Isolating ourselves in our own ideological bubbles. Allowing our obsessive use of digital devices to over-stimulating our ability to absorb the constant barrage of information, entertainment and self-obsessed social media posts.

Social Media Statistics

• 3.1 billion people uses social media (1/3 world’s population) – 2018 Digital Yearbook
• 257 selfie deaths over past 6 years – NCBI
• 81% of US Population has social Media Accounts with 90% of 18-29 year old’s. – Ignitevisibility
• 210 million suffer social media addictions (estimated) – Science Direct
• 71% of people sleep with cell phones & 90% of drivers check their smartphones – MediaKix
• 240 Million Americans check Facebook Daily – Pew Research Center

Notable Research on Negative Consequence of Smart Phone’s & Social Media

• Robert H. Smith School of Business found that after a short period of cell phone use, people were less likely to partake in “prosocial” behavior — actions that are intended to help another person or society — compared with a control group. For example, after using a cell phone, study participants were more likely to turn down volunteer opportunities and were less persistent in completing word problems, even though they knew their answers would provide money for charity. – Time
• Thus, addiction to smartphones and other devices may be considered hyper-social, not anti-social, the researchers say. But, the pace and scale at which they’re used could put the brain’s reward system in ‘overdrive,’ they warn. – Dailymail
• Chris Marcellino, who helped develop the iPhone’s push notifications at Apple, told The Guardian last fall that smartphones hook people using the same neural pathways as gambling and drugs….Sean Parker, ex-president of Facebook, recently admitted that the world-bestriding social media platform was designed to hook users with spurts of dopamine, a complicated neurotransmitter released when the brain expects a reward or accrues fresh knowledge…Average users look at their phones about 150 times a day, according to some estimates, and about twice as often as they think they do, according to a 2015 study by British psychologists. Add it all up and North American users spend somewhere between three and five hours a day looking at their smartphones. As the New York University marketing professor Adam Alter points out, that means over the course of an average lifetime, most of us will spend about seven years immersed in our portable computers. – The Globe and Mail
• Recent research suggests a number of problems can result from smartphone overuse, including addiction-like symptoms and feelings of dependence [2,3], dangerous use, particularly whilst driving [4,5], and forbidden or prohibited use in areas such as libraries, classrooms, or public transport [6]. Accumulating evidence also connects excessive mobile phone use with increasing psychopathological symptoms, such as those related to depression and anxiety [7]. In other words, research suggests excessive mobile phone use can result from psychopathology and constitute a dysfunctional strategy to cope with adverse emotions.-  US National Library of Medicine.

Statistics Indicate Smart Phone’s are taking over peoples lives

• 90% of Americans reported using a technology device within one hour of bedtime.
• 49% of college students reported checking their phones at least once overnight.
• Over half of college students in one study unlocked their phones more than 60 times a day to find out “what they were missing” while they weren’t engaged with their phones. Each session lasted about three to four minutes totaling 220 minutes a day.
• 45% of 14 to 18-year old adolescents reported “always” or “almost always” texting while watching television in a large study.
• Ten minutes: the amount of time that could pass before heavy technology users showed visible signs of anxiety.
• Five hours broken up into 85 distinct sessions: the amount of time 18 to 33-year old young-adults spent on their cell phone every day in another research study.  (Above list from Inc. Magazine)

One glaring point is the huge negative impact smartphones are having on the lives of young people. Mostly because they know not of a world void of internet connection and digital devices. To them, these things are just an attachment of who they are.  Their lives, and sadly many adults, have been molded by their ability to have an instant distraction anytime they feel bothered or bored.  All one has to do is whip out a smartphone to disconnect from the reality around them.

It’s my fear that Smartphones now gives anyone the ability check out entirely.   Limiting people’s ability to truly communicate with each other. Because real social interaction requires times of uncomfrotableness, reading body language, being courteous, making eye contact, listening to those we dont agree with and responding appropriately to others. Basically being social means acting sociable.

However, many seem to opt out of true social interactions. Instead surrounding themselves with admirers and only people and opinions who agree with them. Because doing so means they never have to be uncomfortable or engage socially with those they haven’t added to their “social network”.

My hope in writing this is not just to give information, but to truly inspire others to disconnect and reconnect to the world around them.  Actually focusing on people when they are attempting to communicate with us. Of course, this is impossible, if our head is always buried in our phone.