How many times a day do you pick up your smartphone? Are you a dour stoic developer with a spartan button model or a nervous PR person who is online 24/7? I always thought that I was more of an ascetic who actively uses a smartphone, but at any moment can switch to a button model. Although you can’t refuse me a certain predilection for unusual phones: among my favorites were Samsung QWERTY smartphones and as many as three Nokia E63s – I bought the last one when my colleagues already had their fourth iPhone. But the world moved on and for three years now I have had an iPhone SE - the same, compact, legendary, cool. And everything would be fine if not for a couple of breakdowns: the battery stopped holding and the Power button broke. Having suffered inconvenience for a couple of weeks, I gave it in for repair.
“We’ll return it in three hours,” the master issued a receipt. I went out to the city. No. Another person went to another city.
Cry of Yaroslavna Borisych
I stood on the street in confusion and the first thing I decided to do was to look at the time - but there was no smartphone. I don’t have a sports watch, and I have long worn mechanical watches only on holidays. I found a receipt for repairs, looked at the time of leaving the workshop, decided to call the manager “to chat” - but ... there was no smartphone. It's good that I took time off in advance. Well, the city and I have not seen each other since the beginning of self-isolation, I went to shy away in the center.
Literally every ten minutes, my hand began to rummage in my pocket - I needed to check the mail, work chats, friendly chat, and order status on Ozon. At some point, standing on the embankment, I remembered that I needed to do something on the company's website. I used to easily RDP into my desk and do these things from anywhere. But no, not now. It was nervous.
However, a new feeling also came: I admired the views, flower beds, signs, funny cars, the sky with clouds, the river and did not reach for a smartphone to replenish the collection of my 2700 photos. At first, I felt prickly regret that I would not photograph this next beauty, and then I felt how nice it is to observe something with my eyes and focus on this something, and not look at the world through the camera. It was a real discovery, equal in strength to children's delight.
I went to the store to buy water, took a bottle, dragged it to the checkout. At the checkout, I reached for my smartphone to pay using Apple Pay ... Op-pa. I took a break from my backpack, found a card, then remembered that I had only 93 rubles on my main account, I scattered the rest among others through a mobile bank. There was enough for water, but it was no longer possible to go shopping for food for dinner at these hours. I'm used to "crediting" myself from my other accounts to keep my finances in order. Without a mobile bank, I walked, drank water and saved the rest for the tram.
After two hours, I got bored, I went quite far from the service (steps and kilometers cannot be measured - guess why), but this is almost a whole avenue. My legs hummed terribly, my back began to stretch, and I decided to call Yandex.Taxi, as always. Again, his hand reached into his pocket. Instead of a taxi, the same tram came in handy, for which, just in case, the last rubles were saved. Anxiety for work mail, chats and the ticket system grew to the level of trembling, although I firmly knew that a colleague had replaced me and I could be 3000% sure of him.
And now - they gave me my iPhone in perfect order. No, I got my old life back. I left the service, sat on the curb, called a taxi to the house, exhaled and went to work right there, the brain exhaled, because it was also tired of perceiving and remembering the world around it.
What is this pink snot for?
The world of wireless technologies has entangled us, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. Most of us are addicted to our mobile devices. And I see this as a serious threat.
- The development of memory is retarded. Why do I need to remember something if I have all the working documentation in the cloud, all the regulatory tables, phone numbers, conversation logs - this can be accessed at any time. If you forget, calendars and task managers will remind you.
- Decreased speaking skills. I often have to be a speaker at events of various levels, and I noticed that it is much more pleasant, humorous and freer for me and my colleagues and partners from conferences to communicate in instant messengers. Looking into each other's eyes, we lose the thread of communication, and sometimes we don't even find a topic for conversation, physical communication looks broken.
- Our comfort depends on wireless technologies: networks, their speed, mobile applications. And corporations are doing everything to strengthen this dependence: for example, I already have 4 ecosystems in my smartphone (and tablet): the ecosystem of Google, Apple, Yandex and Microsoft. I use whole sets of applications from each of the developers (I also didn’t count Facebook with its bunch of applications - we’ll consider it for pampering). Yandex especially excelled: they obviously create a super app that will be much cooler than WeChat and similar solutions. What's wrong with that, you ask? Comfortable, beautiful, fast. Everything is correct. But, firstly, companies will begin to dictate their principles and pricing policies when they become the only convenience in your pocket, and secondly, such online ecosystems will create a lot of difficulties for new, vibrant applications. It will be increasingly difficult to have a say in technology and innovation. This can slow down the IT sector and fundamentally change the economic model.
- We have replaced communication with a comfortable surrogate: you can think about the typed phrase, delete the message, flavor the shitty emotion with emoticons. Our intonation does not exist - it is created in the head of the addressee.
- We move away from problems into our devices: instead of thinking about and experiencing an emotion, we begin to read something or watch a video, listen to music. On the one hand, this is how the nervous system is preserved and we dull the sharpness of the reaction to troubles, and on the other hand, we leave an unlived problem inside us that will not solve itself and can lead to depression.
- We are losing the skill of reading from paper - our brain is more accustomed to the screen. And if this is not important for an adult, then such problems in a teenager can lead to a significant drop in the level of education.
- We are not happy - we shoot, post, sign, etc. Emotional perception is reduced. We stop trusting our senses.
- We will buy expensive devices, because they are becoming more and more vital for us. This means that we are ready to pay for speed, convenience, a good battery and autonomy, for our second, not at all simulation, but a real electronic world. This will fuel smartphone and app development companies.
- When we become attached to technology, we transfer a lot of data and knowledge about ourselves to it. And this is the ideal targeted advertising, the developed Internet of things, visible and invisible monitoring, and any other use of our habits, manners, and characteristics of each of us. This is a big ethical problem and a whole layer of questions on personal information security.
And it's all about us adults. The constant contact of children with gadgets is inevitable, but at the same time, you need to understand that it will give rise to a new type of people who do not even fit into the framework of our understanding. And you know what - I will not use slogans about sports, books, friendship, the joy of travel, etc. What is, is already an inevitability. But I want to encourage you, along with the use of gadgets, to develop imagination, memory, visual perception and support it. Otherwise, we can get irreversible brain changes much earlier than the official visit of Alzheimer's grandfather and his companion dementia. Let's memorize more, think and yes, read more. This will save our brain, which manages to get tired of the lack of a smartphone in the same way as it would get tired of the most extreme, stressful situation. Unclench your palms.
Only registered users can participate in the survey. , you are welcome.
Do you have a mobile device addiction?
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41,6%Yes, there are 371
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43,2%No386
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15,2%Didn't think 136
893 users voted. 48 users abstained.
Are you using your smartphone to…
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17,7%games138
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60,7%works473
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77,4%chatting with friends603
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19,1%creativity (photo, editors, music)149
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62,6%entertainment488
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49,4%storage of important personal information385
779 users voted. 90 users abstained.
How often do you pick up your smartphone?
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17,0%Only for answering a voice call137
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38,3%Always when bored308
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26,4%With every signal of mail, chat, reminders, etc.212
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6,2%I don't let go 50
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12,1%Didn't watch it97
804 users voted. 63 users abstained.
Do you sleep with a smartphone?
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9,1%Yes, it's under the pillow
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45,0%Yes, it's on the bedside table377
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45,9%No, of course, I sleep and he sleeps385
838 users voted. 42 users abstained.
Do you read paper books?
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17,1%Oh yes, I'm a bookworm. I like to read145
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13,4%Only professional literature113
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12,8%From time to time I leaf through what fell into my hands108
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9,0%No, I almost don't read - I don't want to
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9,0%No, I almost don't read - I don't have time76
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38,8%No, I'm reading from an e-book328
846 users voted. 37 users abstained.
Source: habr.com