I have a love-hate relationship with my smartphone. It allows me to conduct business practically anywhere on the planet. I use my phone to keep in touch with my family and friends when I travel. My phone helps me find great food, guides me home, allows me to buy something the moment I realize I have a need and constantly connects me with the latest news and information. Like many, I would have difficulty functioning without my phone. Regardless, I miss the good old days. It is increasingly difficult to carve out a moment to have a cogent thought or give my sustained and undivided attention to those I care about most. The smartphone has transformed modern life, and this transformation has occurred at breakneck speed.
When adopting a particular technology, we usually get swept up in what it can do and how it can make our lives easier. We rarely take a step back and consider the unintended consequences of its use. How do these tools begin to shape the way we behave and think about the world? We are just getting the results from studies regarding smartphones that reveal some very disturbing trends. There was a good article in the September 2017 issue of The Atlanticby Jean M. Twenge summarizing some impacts smartphones are having on the post-Millennial generation. This generation, born between 1995-2012, grew up with and around smartphones.
Like many adults, teens are living on their smartphones, and as a result their everyday lives are radically different than previous generations. They are physically safer than past generations with reduced risk of drunk driving and teenage pregnancy. However, mentally they are extremely vulnerable as rates of teen depression and suicide skyrocket. Texting, gaming and social media platforms have dramatically decreased face-to-face interactions. The number of teens that get together with their friends nearly every day dropped 40 percent between 2000-2015. The statistics are also clear that the more time teens spend interacting with a screen, the more likely they are to suffer from depression.
I recently attended a live concert. The teenager sitting in front of me video-recorded the show on his phone and never once looked past his screen at the band! I have seen groups gathered at a restaurant – all glued to their phones except for the occasional selfie. Those teens that do have a driver’s licenses navigate the city by following instructions – not by paying attention to landmarks or what is in-between their starting point and final destination. It is not only teenagers. How many times do adults use smartphones to avoid unpleasant interactions, ignore what is going on around them or get a dopamine hit by checking how many likes their last social media post received?
What becomes of our physical environments when our lives can play out on a screen, in poorly lit rooms, all by ourselves? When we do leave the dimly lit room, how do we experience the world? Do we pay attention to or even care about what is happening in our physical environment? What is more important – having a real experience in a real place or the number of likes we get from portraying the experience online? What happens to our physical environment when so many of our experiences and interactions get reduced to a few sentences and flattened onto a pocket-sized screen? Are thoughtfully designed environments irrelevant or a part of the antidote?