The everyday devices like smartphones, computer/laptops, smart TV’s, tablets, etc which all of us use on our day to day basis is killing people around the world on a large scale.
Most of the people who are killed on roads just because they were the ones stupidly looking at their phones while driving. Since 2009, the number of pedestrians killed on US roads has risen by 51%. In 2017, pedestrian fatalities in Australia jumped by 20% in a year, with police blaming the stupidity of smartphones.
Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ) would like to introduce new laws to fine people who cross the road while glued to their smartphones. Paul Turner, RACQ spokesperson said, “We think sort of offence is on its way, There’s no doubt about it,” additionally “driver distraction due to mobile phone use is the main reason which killed and injured people on Queensland roads every day.”
If Steve Jobs was alive he wouldn’t let his kids use the iPad or smartphones in general because he knew very well that how addictive these gadgets could get.
David Gillespie, the author of Teen Brain – Why Screens Are Making Your Teenager Depressed, Anxious and Prove to Lifelong Addictive Illnesses – And How to Stop it Now, states that “This is ‘like giving them cocaine or heroin’, The effect of Everyday devices can lead us to mental depression as well.”
“Between 2007 and now, the rates of teenage pregnancy, and alcohol and cigarette use by teens all dropped – they’re all about half of what they were, it’s a huge achievement and I don’t know why we’re not talking more about it”, said Gillespie further he states that “The rates of anxiety and depression for teenagers should also be halving but, instead, the rates of those things in teens have actually doubled over the same period.”
“That tells us immediately that something is replacing those addictions. And what has replaced it is also addictive, as it has driven up the mental illness in this life stage.” The reason, according to Gillespie, is that we are now giving every adolescent “devices that can run simulations of addictive behaviour, all the time.”
We are addicted to our smartphones so much that sometimes we feel that our phone is vibrated and there is a message from someone, but when we check it, there’s nothing there. This is the ‘phantom vibrations.‘ It is a syndrome in which a person thinks his or her phone is ringing or vibrating from a text message but in actual it is not. We live in that society where people are increasingly dependent on mobile devices and in that society, the ‘phantom vibrate’ easily becomes a phenomenon of worry for users.
It is said in a report by Google that smart devices with email, social media, and news applications create a continuous sense of duty which causes unwanted personal stress.
The average Indian spend roughly 4.3 hours a day on smartphones for gaining some information but unfortunately, not all the information on our mobile screen give us a positive response. Sometimes we’re getting distracted, irritating emails from colleagues and this causes our body to release cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone which increases our heart rate and blood pressure and changes us psychologically and physically.
Some of the social media apps like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are designed in such a way that it wants us to check them endlessly. Besides this, there are reports that smartphones also causes anxiety, insomnia and depression and these mental problems are more common among teenagers.
We are becoming addicted to both the dopamine hits of satisfaction that our smartphones give us hundreds of time in a day, along with assaulted by the dangerous levels of cortisol. The combination of both is affecting everything from the way we sleep to our memory, our attention span, our self – esteem, decision-making skills and our physical health.
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