How dependent are you on your smart phone?
Do you suffer from separation anxiety every time you forget your smart phone when you leave your office or home? Are you constantly checking it for new notifications ? Do you feel lost if your phone battery runs out of juice?
If you answered yes to any or all of the above, you are like every average person in the 21st century– completely dependent on your smart phone.
My smart phone is like my mother:
It wakes me up in the morning. Like me, I am sure, you set an alarm on your smart phone. I have several alarms on my phone over a period of about fifteen minutes. They are set three or four minutes apart with different ring tones. I hit the snooze button quite a few times before I finally wake up. But I can’t do that to my mother !
My smart phone is like my Personal assistant :
It carries my phone book. All my memos, reminders and appointments. My shopping lists, weekly menus and to do lists. I don’t think a secretary could be so efficient.
My smart phone is like my Personal trainer
You can download a physical fitness app on your phone that counts the number of steps you walk each day. It also analyses your activity and encourages you to keep up the good work depending on what goal you fed into the app.
My smart phone is my library
Ever since I learned to read, I could devour books faster than I could aquire them. In the days before the internet, bookstores and libraries were the only sources of reading material. I could never aquire books as fast as I could read them.
Now my smart phone gives me access to whatever book I want, whether for recreational or research purposes. If I want a meaning of a word I don’t even walk to my bookshelf for a dictionary. I just Google it (the way I am sure you do too).
My smart phone is my gaming arcade
in my young days, video games were all the rage. Electronic games where you hit virtual opponents or gunned down enemies by pushing a few buttons, while sound and lght effects made the experience almost realistic.
You had to go to video arcades or parlours where machines for playing these games were installed. You operated them by putting in special coins that you purchased from the counter. Children spent a lot of their pocket money and free time on these games.
Nowadays children don’t need to go anywhere to play video games. They can all be played on mum’s (or their own) smart phone.
My smart phone is my theatre/cinema
There are still people alive today who remember their only source of entertainment to be a visit to the cinema or theatre. Those of us who grew up with television remember having to wait for their favourite shows.
Then came VCRs followed by DVD players that allowed you to play movies of your choice on TV whenever you wanted. But you needed three pieces of equipment, a television/monitor, a VCR/DVD player and of course the videotape/disc.
Then the smartphone entered and took centre stage. Now you can download or stream movies, shows, channels, from all over the world any time and any where.
My smart phone is my club
Sitting on my couch in my living room, I can stay in touch with friends all over the world using my smart phone. I don’t need a to join a club or go to soirees to socialize. Facebook groups and WhatsApp groups let you interact with large groups of people at a time, at any time and any place, with your trusty smartphone.
OMG ! My smart phone runs my life !!!
There is an app for everything you want to do. Just install it on your smart phone and you are all set. Learning a language or a musical instrument, buying cinema or plane tickets, doing academic or office work : all can be done on your phone.We have become completely dependent on our super duper, trusty rusty, handy dandy smart phone.
Will we always remain so attached to our smart phones? Or will we embrace newer technology, casting them aside like an old shoe?Human beings are fickle creatures when it comes to technology. Were this not so, we would not have progressed much further than the invention of the wheel.
But how about you? How dependent are YOU on your smart phone?
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Pictures courtesy Pixabay
I do not utilize my smart phone as much as most people do. For one thing the screen is too small for me to read the font, plus I really don’t trust it – too many news stories of tracking data and ways for unsavory people to get into my business. HOWEVER, I would be lost with out it. It has become my lifeline, especially recently with hubby in the hospital and being alone in the big, bad city. Texting and calling loved ones who have been my anchor and support through a (so-far) 5 weeks of hospitalization has helped me get through some pretty stressful and anxious moments.
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I am glad that unlike the rest of us, you are not too dependent on your phone.
I hope your husband can leave the hospital soon. It is very stressful to have a family member in the hospital. And for you being on your own it is all the more so.
It’s really good that you are blogging these days because I am sure this takes your mind off your worries .
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.
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Thank you for your kind words. Yes, blogging helps. The time is long and I am grateful to have the opportunity to read and to write. Most of my days are still spent advocating, watching, and listening to the health care professionals. It’s a worry, but I gain strength from the many warm and caring people such as yourself. Thanks again.
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It’s a great post. We all are dependent somehow or other on our smart phones.Be it our work or leisure. But it has own advantage and disadvantage.we can misuse it and even use as much for our own benefits. Loved reading this post. 😇
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Thank you so much for reading and commenting.
You are absolutely right.
There are advantages and disadvantages.
Striking the balance is important.
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Yes indeed🙂
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🎁
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I only use my phone for calls/texts and the alarm in the mornings /timer when cooking…That’s it…I don’t have it connected to the internet when I am out and about 🙂
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Then you are far less dependent than the rest of us.
Thanks for stopping by.
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You are welcome and yes I suppose I am but I hate phones being used too much I have banned them from the dinner table as then no one talks 🙂
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Good idea!
We need to establish a new set of etiquette for use of devices and internet.
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I think so, Tanya as I think people are far too dependent on their phones but I do draw a line with Phones and tv at mealtimes…I am not always popular but hey ho..
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More power to you!
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According to my iPhone’s Screen Time app, I average about 9 hours a day on my smartphone, most of it on WordPress reading and writing posts and making and responding to comments.
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I guess if I timed my smart phone use it might be as much.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
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You are right. I am very and truly addicted to my phone. I even blog from it at times. A brilliant post.
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Addicted?
Aren’t we all?
Thanks for stopping by.
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Indeed. It’s a pleasure.
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I would say moderately. I use mine for phone calls and texting more than anything else. I check Instagram several times a day, and I do have access to my calendar on the phone, and I probably update or look at it once or twice a day. The reminders Google sends me are sometimes a lifesaver. If I didn’t have a Kindle, I’d probably use the phone a lot more. It’s the Kindle that I spend a lot of time on, because that’s where my books are. 🙂
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We’re all dependent on our devices Amanda, some more than others.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
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Strangely enough I use my phone to make the occasional phone call and sometimes text. If I’m really getting adventurous I might take a photograph.
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Then you are not at all dependent on it.
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I’m very glad not to be dependent on it at least I can walk down the street looking where I’m going without bumping into anything!
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Good for you 😀
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All emails, my PowerPoint presentations, what not. What will one do without the phone 🙂
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Story of our lives
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A good post – l don’t actually possess a Dumb Phone and don’t wish to have one in my life. I hardly use a mobile phone these days and only have a Nokia something or the other – way too many people are too heavily addicted into it, and all it does is control your lives. It’s not even the technology advancement to blame it is more a case of people wanting ease of movement and an efficient mobile system.
But these phones alongside various levels of social media are not just dominating your lives but dominating your ability to free think, they take away the need to communicate, they also attract the wrong type of people and by this, l mean there are huge problems currently in the UK where theft of Smart phones is constantly on the increase and people are becoming serious injured because of what? a piece of overly expensive hardware? My life is worth more than a bloody phone. Lets not even start on the cost of these damn things, l see adverts over here for them and the prices are astonishing?
Of course the next wave will be to have them inserted into your heads and everything will be hyperfocused by your brains, then once they take over your brains you are completely hooked ….oh no wait a minute!
I read recently that lights are to be inserted into the footpaths/sidewalks in some countries to help the zombie populations – allowing them to be able to walk at the same time as scrolling on their phones all they have to do is to remember to occasionally look to their feet like they are an aircraft taxing on the ground.
Suze spends a lot of time on hers, sometimes she goes into the toilet with her phone and 30 minutes later with me experiencing all kinds of bladder control dances, she comes out and looks at me squirming and squiggling and asks what’s up?? Well l needed the toilet babes l gasp! oh sorry l was on my phone playing a game, or l was reading this, or l was ….blah blah!
Am l the perfect saint amongst all this angst? no, my passion is my desktop, does it control my life? No, but WP does a bloody good of trying to 🙂
Excellent post Tanya 🙂
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Thank you so much .
I am so glad this post has generated so much discussion.
You are right, these phones have turned some people into zombies , detached from their surroundings.
Dependence on any device is not a good idea
We need to control our use of the devices we possess rather than allowing the devices to possess us.
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Exactly – the phone is the worst because it is always with you, it is designed with that focus in mind, to be light enough to carry, slip into a bag a pocket, everything is about the users becoming uber users and using all the time.
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Precisely .
This is why we are enslaved by it.
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Yep, totally and sadly 🙂
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Reblogged this on A Guy Called Bloke and K9 Doodlepip! and commented:
Brain calling phone, is there anyone home?
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Thank you.
That is really nice of you.
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No problem Tanya 🙂
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🎁
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Well came here to visit, and see that i am not alone, I too am Not very addicted. of course i use a Tablet for the books, games, apps that i can use Offline. I don’t like the charges for data, so phone is sort of there if someone texts, calls 😛
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But if you didn’t have a tablet, would you then be dependent on your phone?
Thanks for stopping by.
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Well perhaps a little,still so tiny screen! I have a few Kindle books since I can but not game
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😀
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Yes, we are too dependent on smart phones!
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Totally agree
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Ha ha! Not guilty (or not much). I’ve been away to where there is no internet and no reception for 4 whole days and I haven’t missed my phone. However, coming home to 100+ unanswered emails…
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Then you are definitely not dependent.
And thanks for stopping by.
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I’m not addicted to the phone, but I spend some time with my laptop, because I blog and reply to comments.
greetings
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Hi there
It’s okay to use your devices whether phone or tablet or laptop provided the use is kept in check and doesn’t prevent you from doing other things.
Thanks for stopping by.
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This has been in my mind a lot lately (she says, as she writes this in her phone) and I’m nostalgic for a pre-phone era. I write about this, from a sentimental view, quite a bit. How will history see us?
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You have hit the proverbial nail on the head.
I wrote part of this post on my phone too.
And therein lies our problem.
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Thank you — much obliged !
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