Introduction
Cell phones have become our third hand, really. I can’t imagine a day without a cell phone, especially without the internet. In this post, we will talk about how cell phones affect our minds, degrade our productivity and make us less sharp in our everyday lives.
What it does
The first thing the cell phone does is that it takes away your time by keeping you entertained. Now, entertainment is not bad, mindless entertainment which deviates from your responsibility is bad.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the hall in a second which is social media, but before that let’s talk about the access to mobile and how it is becoming impossible to live without it.
Portability Problem
The funny thing about phones is that they’re portable, which is the main advantage and the disadvantage too.
It’s like having a mind upgrade and a mind degrader anytime anywhere with you.
If you misplay it, it can mess with your mind very well. If you handle it right, then it can give you money, entertainment and improve your life. But that’s not the case for most people.
People are addicted to their phones because frankly they don’t know what to do frankly without phones. Another important part is they are bored so they need to do something with the phone.
Phones can harm the brain in many ways. The rays coming and going to the phones, the addiction part in many ways, either its with games, content, or people.
The addiction is unheard of.
Now let’s talk about the main part which is how social media affects our minds.
I want to talk about the behavioural part of the person and how he is always into social apps and quite frankly it can easily be harmful if one is not aware and careful of it.
Social Media Content and The Mind
The mind is always bored naturally so it will seek ways to not be bored like scrolling mobile, reading, talking to people, etc.
While reading, talking to people can be helpful, even scrolling productive stuff on the phone can be helpful, but more often than not, we don’t scroll productive stuff.
We see only dopamine kicking stuff that makes us always be on our phones. This neurological repeated behaviour changes the chemical in the brain and can lead us to traps.
The people who get caught in these types of issues are usually students and people who have less money who can’t afford to try different remedies. We live in a world where if you don’t have a smartphone, you’ll be looked at so differently that it’s unacceptable.
Technology wise we are connected and every day we get close very much and in reality we also create our own virtual worlds and become lonely and that affects the brain in negative ways.
Knowledge about these things can really help people to get out of the traps and knowledge about what the mind wants should also be a part of the education process.
Stat: Average person checks their phone 96 times a day. It doesn’t feel like that many, does it? I think it is more than 96.
Also imagine the level of attention deficit that each person goes through because of this, right? 96 times is definitely a lot.
I think it’s because of mindlessly scrolling social media most of the time. Also there is another insight in that stat which tells us how people are deprived of anything interesting going on in their life. Right?
Unless your work is on your phone, 96 is absurd. Also our attention span is shrinking. We quickly move on to the next content or stuff when we go through our mobile.
This translates to our real life too, we want everything fast and now, like 5G. Attention, How well we can focus and pay attention is our great advantage and these behaviours due to smartphones degrade it.
The rise of mental illnesses could be due to overreliance on smartphone mindless scrolling.
Smartphones should serve our purpose in our life. It should elevate our life and make us better than our previous version.
Spoiling us is not an option with smartphones.
So we should be more and more aware of smartphone’s effects on our daily lives and our minds.
Tips to reduce this degrading behaviour
- Turn on DND in your mobile which allows you to take calls from certain conditions, which helps you to not look at your phone very often.
- During certain times, you can leave the phone in the house, for example, when you are going out to relax after work, go out and enjoy nature, leave the phone in your home.
- Play real games instead of playing on your mobile. Playing outdoors is well known to provide health benefits. Sometimes it’s ok to play with friends while you’re away. Mostly you should be playing outdoors every day and not on your phone.
Conclusion
Finally, mobile phones are not evil. It’s how we use them that determines the end result.
Do we have proper regulations in place with ourselves or do we give in for every single notification is something that each individual should decide for themselves.
Some minor changes like putting the phone on silent while reading or talking with friends, buying a book instead of reading online can all help and count.
Sometimes we may need external help and it’s totally fine to get help. It’s very silly to not get help by thinking people will judge you. People will be more than willing to help you overcome phone issues if you are very open with them.
Also we won’t be sharing this with people whom we don’t feel comfortable with, right?