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Enslaved by the need for the big screen

smartphone addiction
Man using a smartphone. Photo by Marjan Grabowski on Unsplash

In the 1970s, researchers at Bell Labs in the USA started an experiment with the concept of a cellular phone network. Meanwhile, Martin Cooper, an engineer at the Motorola Company in the USA was developing a fairy tale device which can fit into an ordinary pocket and act like a telephone.

Most of us might not know that the actual concept Cooper came up with was also on the Star Trek Series which was very popular in the late 1960s. Television viewers in the late 60s were fascinated with the notion of a hand-held two-way communication device as seen in the hands of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock- characters of the Star Trek Series.

The first mobile phone which was invented in 1984 was about a kilogram and gained much popularity in the USA and Europe, especially among financiers and wealthy families. People called it “the brick” due to its size, which was similar to a brick.

The mobile phone has seen significant evolution during these 39 years, progressing from basic to sophisticated. Even if its only intended use was for simple two-way communication, the mobile phone has advanced to a point that folks in the 1980s probably could not have imagined. Because any part of the world is only a click away, we carry a whole world around with us. The internet and smartphones can without a doubt be compared to the spirit and body.

Can you think of a day without the internet or a smartphone? Smartphones serve as a link between contemporary needs.

Smartphones as tools of social interaction

Photo by Hugh Han on Unsplash

Despite the excellence of this holy messenger, we are practically grasped and turning ourselves crippled. We are deliberately taking delight in its hard lashes. The vast majority of us have doubtlessly experienced getting up right on time yet never leaving our blanket and bed for we were unable to pass up a notification that shows up on our cushion screen.

We swipe the videos until we get late for the office/school/college. We cannot simply move past the content that shows up on our big screen the entire day. Researchers found out, that social interaction stimulates the release of dopamine – a recreational hormone. Because so many people use their phones as tools of social interaction, they become accustomed to constantly checking them for that hit of dopamine that is released when they connect with others on social media or some other app.

Researchers also came up with the fact that the big App Companies hire an expert to make the content more addictive and enforcing. Some apps even withhold and release social reinforcements, such as likes and comments, so we receive them in an unpredictable pattern. When we cannot predict the pattern, we check our phones more often.

Experiencing ban on smartphone

Knowing this reality, I attempted a week of not using a smartphone. Being a banker, a solitary week without a smartphone had been so difficult, it resembled a vacant page and a frozen pen.

I used one straightforward burner telephone (keypad telephone) only for a phone talk yet shockingly I figured out how smartphones have caught our free brain. I figured out that it has been a cutting-edge day’s ace for us with a stick in its hand.

The principal thing I saw on the morning was, that two of my colleagues mockingly passed a remark saying, “Hello, this thing suits you.” Later one of my seniors stopped by gazing at my burner telephone saying, “You know? Criminals use this thing.”

What she said had a rationale, burner telephone is something just a crook might use to try not to be followed by specialists. A geek and an outlaw, after about an hour of surrendering the smartphone. The next episode was, my supervisor shouted for not sending her a day-to-day Whatsapp update.

The day was cruising by, during a lunch break I neglected to convey cash in my wallet to my companion to make the bill payment for I was unable to make any QR payments. On the other side of town, one of my well-wishers believed that I turned out to be sick and hospitalised because I was online 23 hours prior.

One night, I came over to my companion’s place as he made arrangements for a get-together. I got exhausted as everyone around the lounge chair was entertained checking their big screen out. I was attempting to break the discussion however nobody was keen on talking.

Researchers also found that when we are staring at our phones, we are often connecting with someone on social media or through texting. Sometimes, we are flipping through our pictures the way we once turned the pages of photo albums, remembering moments with people we love. Unfortunately, however, this can severely disrupt our actual, present-moment, in-person relationships, which also tend to be our most important ones.

Before smartphones moreover, life was going on perfectly. A conversation in a bistro used to be participative, as opposed to lying on a couch the whole day people used to invest energy with buddies, they used to work by their senses.

Likewise, AIs created on the web are exceptionally valuable for us and save us time however on the off chance that it arrives in the hands of little children, they might become reliant on diversion, learning and critical thinking, which can adversely affect their imagination and decisive reasoning abilities.

As a human, we should invite the new components of progress. Having said that, the ethics we have and the brilliant psyche we have should not be tied and servitude. We should have ordinary detects which ought not to be overwhelmed by the need of the big screen. Normally our psyche is extremely inventive and remarkable. The guidelines we have in our normal psyche ought not to be supplanted by the enormous screens. In this way, smartphones are for us to serve us which ought not to be switched.

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Ghimire is a banker.

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