Ben Lennon | Staff Writer
From the start I think it is important to make it clear that I don’t have a smartphone but I am not against everything they have to offer. There is no denying that apps like Google Maps and Shazam are useful, to say otherwise would be foolish. But research in the US has shown that people buy smartphones for practical and safety reasons. But how they end up actually using them differs very much from their original intention.
It is what comes with this practical technology that I do not like, the constant connectivity and distraction these devices encourage. Usually in a debate about new technology, and specifically smartphones, someone ends up concluding that technology isn’t good or bad in itself but rather it is how people use it that needs to be questioned. But this is a cliché that is both boring and an inaccurate reflection of the reality. The ability to be constantly contactable by one another, on the Internet and on a social network whenever we feel we must is something that relates to all smartphone users. We are the first generation to experience this phenomenon of constant connection and, although it may seem natural to us, it is a radically new way for us to interact with one another.
I think by now most of us have experienced the situation where you go for a coffee with a friend and as you sit down at least one of you places their phone right there on the table between you. What does this say to the other person? You’re happy to be there but only until something better comes up or you begin to get bored. This new technology allows us to bail out of any situation whenever we want. If you are having a conversation with three friends one can simply zone out to another world of someone else’s reality if the idea of Twitter is more appealing than listening to you. I’ve been in a pub before with friends where those around the table with smartphones were using WhatsApp to talk to one another about something else to what the rest of us were discussing. I believe that this kind of action has negative implications for how we relate to one another because it favours connection over conversation.
And this new technology does not just pose a problem confined to our generation. In many professions there is an expectation to have a smartphone with constant access to email. This idea of constant connection has meant that work time has encroached onto personal, family and even sleep time. There is an increasing obligation to reply to emails as quickly as possible. The excuse that you ‘only saw this now’ is becoming less tolerable. As the world of work operates at an increasingly fast pace, the fear of being left behind does not allow for a clear end to the working day in many cases.
It is true that we can just switch off our phones and not log in to social media sites when we have them in our pockets. But this is becoming increasingly harder because these devices encourage us to use them as often as possible. Social media exists to make money and the economy of advertising is based on attention. These networks are designed to get as many hours as possible of your day. Companies like Facebook and Twitter design their products to seduce us into their use by appealing to our vulnerabilities. They feed our egos and release endorphins through ‘likes’ and ‘ re-tweets’ how we come back more and more regularly to them. We develop a sense that what we are doing is ok only if we get enough social validation for it. Think about the language these services use, five hundred ‘friends’ just waiting for your status update. Or even the idea of having ‘followers’ on Twitter is about as messianic as you can get. We are afraid of being alone and these sites give us the illusion that we never have to be. Having access to social media all the time allows us to feel connected to our friends but only on terms that we can control. It removes the demands of face-to-face relationships because you have to chat only when it suits you, when you’re bored on the bus. And the access to these sites creates further anxiety because once we feel alone we can only be reassured by our ability to reach into our pockets and connect to the ‘real’ world again.
Smartphone users then begin to feel the need to update everyone about what they are doing all the time in order to get a few more likes or retweets. Everything has to be shared because a moment alone is no longer of value to us unless others can approve it of. People are too busy taking a photo of the city skyline with Instagram to actually enjoy and experience it. But by doing this we only act as a filter, what you are documenting only passes through you to others rather than actually pausing to reflect on what you should be experiencing. You’re too busy focusing on keeping your hands still at the concert you are filming to properly enjoy the spectacle. It is the exact same when you take a picture of (another) sunset.
And if you think this constant connection is fine at its current level well it looks like it is only going to get worse. Facebook recently launched an app called ‘Home’ which replaces the normal ‘home screen’ of your phone with your Facebook news feed. If you reach in to your pocket to check the time you may end up finding out that three of your friends have checked in to Tolteca without you and are taking photos of their food with nostalgic filters. At its launch the instantly available news feed was described as ‘for those in-between moments like waiting in line at the grocery store or between classes when you want to see what’s going on in your world’. Just in case you thought otherwise, those moments between classes waiting around with friends are no longer ‘your world’, it’s now online in handy bite size chunks for you to consume only whenever suits you.
These criticisms may seem more directed towards social networks than anything else but the issue is that smartphones mean they are always available to us. Our interactions with one another have changed because it has become acceptable to zone out to another conversation when with friends. It is important to remember, however, that this is all very new and how it will shape interactions over the long term is impossible to tell. This has just been my experience so far of a rapidly developing technology and whether I like it or not I will probably end up owning a smartphone at some stage. I will probably even end up checking my news feed when I should be paying attention to what my friends are saying. But if we could all just resist a little bit maybe we would be better off.
