Smartphones are ruling our lives. They are with us every step of the day and we have been tricked into using them for everything. Feeding our own addiction.
How do we escape something that has become an extension of ourselves? Something we have let turn into an addiction without realising it?
Humans have developed an addiction to both adrenalin and dopamine, and both are stimulated and triggered when we use smartphones. Many are so deep into their addiction that they can’t even consider the prospect of breaking it. We truly don’t know how to function without it anymore.
The Smartphone is in the hands of everyone these days. People go into a frightful panic at the very idea of putting it away for a few minutes, let alone days. We speak more through our smartphones, through chats and social media, than we do to each other in real life. We apply for work through them, go on interviews through them, take our doctor’s visits through them, date through them, go to house viewings through them… Any day now I’d wager they’ll be connecting them to breathing units so we’ll breathe through them as well.
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The smartphone is designed to make us addicted
The bond between a smartphone and its owner is far stronger than any addiction, because it’s been an addiction for so long that people now imagine the smartphone to be an actual part of them. With the digital world raging we’ve been lured to put everything into them – from our bank information to our weight to our diaries. No wonder we’re attached. They’re like our portable confession boxes. A priest would never tell your confessions to anyone else, but the smartphones? One wrong button pushed and the world knows.
We’ve lost our way
In today’s society, there are actually courses on how to function and how to talk to people. How to be around people, how to be intimate and how to make friends. And how to do all of the above without the smartphone. That is beyond sad. People have actually forgotten how to function without technology. They can no longer recall how to spend time with their loved ones. How to make new connections. They don’t know how to speak without a piece of technology attached to them. Or how to act when you meet someone in person.
Given how much people hold on to them and consider them extensions of their own bodies, humans are practically robots already. It’s been so long since one looked something up in a book or asked someone else rather than googling it, that they’ve forgotten how to do so. The smartphone is a grand invention to be sure. However, it is not all good. The use of it has replaced intimacy in the world. Rather than solving a problem – as most inventions do – it has created an even greater one. It has made people unable to live without it, or live at all.
The smartphone is the assassin of intimacy.
But how do we get away? Can we even escape it?
First we have to admit to having an addiction. Think about what would happen if you stopped using your smartphone. What would you do? What did you do before the smartphone? For what do you rely on it now?
We’re so used to it, that we will not be able to get away from it in one go. But gradually, we need to make sure we stop relying on it as much. That we start looking at people rather than staring at the screen. We need to talk to people face to face rather than chat with them through a screen. We should utilise our libraries more, and connect with each other again. Connect without Bluetooth or an internet connection, to learn things that Google could never teach us. Things we have to learn through communication with another human being.
It is always dangerous to get so used to something that you can’t figure out your life without it. And even more so when that something is a disposable, fragile and material thing. Something that may malfunction and end up sharing your life and all your deepest secrets with the world, completely outside of your control.
What can we do to make the change?
Start putting your phone more and more in flight mode, and refrain from using it at night and during the weekends. Block notifications. Remove most of your apps. If you check your email a lot, unsubscribe to advertisements and newsletters. If you’re someone who uses the phone for work, or you have people contacting you daily, you may have to do things differently. You could let clients and colleagues know you’re only available between certain hours every day. Keep your notifications on during those hours.
You could also set up an alarm for when you deal with messages, phone calls etc. That way you’ll make sure you don’t get lost in anything else or start scrolling instead. After that, you block the notifications again until the same time tomorrow.
It is important to make the transition gradually.
Seeking alternatives to smartphones
Apart from all of this, depression, anxiety, panic attacks and stress have all been linked to smartphones and our addiction to them, and social media. Not to mention radiation. Nowadays most phones also have 5G – something people were adamant we should not be using due to the high risk it poses to our health and well-being. When people first began to discuss it, it was made clear that it was medically dangerous and could even cause diseases such as cancer. Then China and other parts of the world realised how much they could stand to earn from it, and suddenly human lives didn’t matter much anymore.
To fight our exposure to the harm the devices can cause, a brand called Mudita has created a phone that will help you resume your offline life. It has an eye-friendly screen, an alarm for meditations, and three modes – offline, do not disturb and connected. It also has an ergonomic keyboard, comes in black and white, with no touch screen, a two-coloured flashlight that produces light that promotes the secretion of melatonin which improves your sleep.
The ringtones and signals are gentle and pleasant, created by musician Nick Lewis. You can transfer your own music to the phone like we once did with smartphones. Best of all, Mudita has created a battery that won’t need to be charged every day (less electricity and no more dead phones). The design that is built to last, to not create unnecessary waste.
I haven’t tried the phone myself, but the initiative they’ve taken is a step in the right direction.
Why should we make a change?
Stepping away from using a smartphone, will be a big change. If you go for a Mudita Pure, I imagine the change will be even greater. And the positive effects will likely be greater too. However, to go from having everything in your phone to having no browser, no apps, no streaming or even a camera, will inevitably take some time to get used to. But just like when you go on holiday and sit in nature, you will get used to the quiet and come to love it. And you’ll realise just how many hours there are in a day.
It wasn’t that long ago that we had MP3 players and cell phones and we did fine. If you choose a Mudita, it will have a music player built in, and all the essential functions.
There are pros and cons, as with any decision. But the initiative to create such a phone, the thought behind it and the sheer creativity required for such an endeavour is admirable. I believe that while the change will be great in the beginning, it will inevitably help us connect more and increase our creativity and presence. We will become present again.
Whether you wish to try a Pure phone from Mudita or find some other solution – like going back to a regular cellphone – I do implore you to start using your smartphone less. Don’t become so addicted to a phone that you spend the rest of your days looking down. Or you’ll be letting life’s precious moments pass you by.
Don’t let the assassin of intimacy catch you.
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