The first step in overcoming an addiction, say the experts, is to admit that you have one. Judging by how many people can’t seem to resist their cell phones while driving, eating supper, working (or whatever), they are addicted and not admitting it.
One definition of insanity (say other experts) is to keep doing something even when you know it is harmful. Addiction to anything is harmful. That includes things you can’t live without, such as food or human contact. Too much food can kill you, at worst. At best it will make you an unpleasant person to be around. Cell phone addiction falls into the human contact category. Apparently it can’t be resisted. The thrill of ‘putting things out there’ and getting ‘instant feedback’ on them is too compelling. This is kind of pathetic, but also (obviously) a lot of fun. And maybe more than fun. Maybe a necessity for many people. It makes you wonder how in the world humankind managed all those millennia before the Interweb showed up to make our lives tolerable.
It’s worth noting that the powers that be (gigantic corporations in other words) want us to behave exactly like we are behaving. They do not want us to ever be out of touch. They want our devices on at all times and they want us paying attention to them at all times. That’s their agenda. They have their reasons – one being that expensive advertisers want to know their ads are being seen. We’re being led by the nose, like sleep-walkers or like sheep, into a lifestyle that demands we be exposed to promotional B.S. all the time. Why? So whoever it is can separate us from more of our money. How does it feel to be a pawn of corporate interests?
This was always the case, of course. The world, after all, is one big marketplace. Half the people in it are trying to sell something to the other half. That’s just life. However, it is getting much harder to steer clear of it if that is what you want to do. If you don’t? Hey, no problem! Screeeech! Oops! Sorry, I didn’t see you. I was looking at my cell phone!
An expert on ‘screen-time’ strategies was on the radio the other day. He’s written a book about how all this has changed human behaviour, to the detriment of mental and physical health. Know what’s going on, he says. Pick your ‘screen-free’ times and put your phone in a drawer, nowhere near where you are. Don’t rely on ‘willpower’ to help you ignore its vibrations. He’s done studies. People who can carve out time free from cell phone tyranny tend to sleep better, have better relationships with the people right in front of them and feel better about themselves. They also tend to get in fewer distracted driving crashes (he didn’t say, but we will).
Does it do any good to talk about this stuff? Maybe. Sometimes you don’t realize you are being manipulated until somebody points it out.
And what do you know, Mr. Burgar, in the other opinion column on this page, provides an excellent example of what we have been ranting about in this one. ‘They’ are definitely out there, and trying to get their hooks deeper into our wallets.