Are you slave to your mobile?

ARE YOU SLAVE TO YOUR MOBILE?

Are you an elderly person? If yes, have you noticed something utterly different when you take the subway, the train or the bus that is different from previous times? Almost everyone on board is busy on their mobile phones scrolling and pressing things or shuffling music files.

Even friends sit beside each other in these locomotives, but they don’t talk. I have not been left out in this as every morning. I purposely locate my smartphone which probably woke me up. See what. I mean now?
In the past, people would use alarm clocks to help them get up in the morning but now mobile phones are powerful as they are popular. Theydon help us a lot like in such times, but it is not okay that our phones are transforming in these mannerisms.
We spend three hours a day on our phones, on average, with almost one in five of us admitting we check our phone at least once every 15 minutes.
These are some of the early findings from Australia’s Biggest Smartphone Survey, which is looking at how we use our smartphones and how we feel about them.
More than 10,000 people have taken part in the survey so far, but there’s still plenty of time to participate with the survey running until Friday, August 25.
In particular, researchers want to hear from more young people, especially those aged between 12 and 25.
Psychology PhD student Bep Uink from Murdoch University, says: “Young Australians are digital natives so it’s possible they have more sophisticated relationships with their smartphones than their parents’ generation.”
“It’s really important for researchers to hear from young people about the benefits they get from their smartphones, and conversely the downsides of having such a ubiquitous device in their lives, that we might not otherwise be aware of,” she says.
More than a quarter of us said we spend a quarter of our smartphone time on social media. The other things we use our phones for most are text messages and phone calls.
“I often think I would be happier, more productive and less lonely if I deleted my social media accounts and used my phone primarily for podcasts, news, music and maps, however it is difficult to disconnect from the social media ‘pull’,” said one respondent.
Most people describe their phone as helpful, connecting and the key to freedom.
“I feel unsafe if walking alone (particularly at night) without my phone.
Being able to quickly send a message or group message, or call someone, is very comforting,” said another.
Forty-five per cent of respondents so far strongly agreed with the statement ‘I think other people should not look at their smartphone when I’m talking to them’.
Comments included “Hate how they may influence conversation opportunities” and “They are stopping us from interacting with the people around us”.
When playing with your phone around the house have you noticed that your parents desire total to you? Have you seen the danger you pose when you cross busy roads with your earpieces plugged in listening to blasting music in your phone? You probably have observed this but chosen to ignore it because everyone else is doing the same. You might as well never have noticed it.
Reason to Listen: Whatever age bracket you fall under you are either affected or the direct victim of slavery to cell phones. As a concerned person do you wish to see your loved one languish forever in the chains of the mobile phone era? Wouldn’t you like to help them out? As a slave to your mobile, do you wish to continue that way or do you want to change that? Hold on for those who want to change as I will show you how.
For those that don’t care I hope to change your minds as well. I will discuss more of being a slave to the mobile in details. So the main question remains to be, should the young people play with their phones on a daily?
Thesis: Young people should not play with their phones every day.
Preview: I will give an analysis of why people become mobile slaves. I will further explain the problem of being a mobile slave as well as the solution to help the young people want to enjoy the real world more. I believe once they feel the actual life they will never become a mobile slave again.
• Technology has made it harder for people to let go of their cell phones.
1.User-friendly models are continually being made.
2.Affordability and portability improvements.
3.Battery life extensions.
Transition: People playing with their phones all the time has caused problems,
• Ruining interactions between these individuals and others.
•The personal downfall for the mobile slave.
Transition: There’s a way to curb this menace.
1.Have the phone on silent sometimes.
2.Switch off the flickering light for notifications.
3.Have a purpose whenever you open your phone to use it.
4.Screen our text messages, emails or phone calls.
5.Set aside time to scrutinize your new phone notifications.
Wearer living in an era where thanks to technology we wake up to new inventions on a daily. Phones have evolved through series from the annoying, bulky and expensive to user-friendly, portable and affordable gadgets. It is now possible for almost every teen and youth to possess a mobile phone. In this era, we call them smartphones.
Thanks to their user-friendly interface, the user can interact with it on a personal level. As a result, the owners become attached to their gadgets which they can now customize to make it more of what they desire. For example, upon purchasing a smartphone, it comes with some pre-installed applications. The applications that come with the gadget are mostly for communication and games.
Abuser can then delete the apps they don’t like or wish not to use and purchase or download other applications they like. A user can download as many apps as the phone memory capacity can allow. Thanks to this feature a mobile phone user can navigate from game to game or one social media application to the next with little interferences. The battery is one limiting factor of the smartphones, but this has not hindered technologist from inventing cues to curb the menace.
Battery capacities have increased in the recent years to sustain a mobile phone’s user time. Gadgets like power banks that are highly portable have also been made to charge up these smartphones at the convenience of the user when their battery dies. Therefore, mobile phones are here to stay and if possible, improve. However, the problems they have brought about are going nowhere.
Mobile phones have destructed the perfect parent-child relationship. It is double trouble if the parents are youngsters. The parent is on the phone as much as the child is. Other parents may argue that the technology has helped give them a piece of mind because they can communicate with their kids wherever they are as well as track them. One thing they forget, however, is that these digital mechanisms are in no way a replacement for real human interaction. Parent-child relationships are very vital in instilling morals in the children, helping them solve their problems, appreciating their children’s successes and failures as well as giving them invaluable advice that helps them in their daily pursuits.
Itis common knowledge that parents have more knowledge compared to their children thanks to their experience. Therefore, who better to advice than their kids? Thanks to mobile slavery interactions between children and parents are minimal if any. Children result to looking up to the internet in the hope that they get answers to whatever is bugging their young minds. The information most of the times is misleading as it doesn’t offer the repercussions or is just wrong.
As young people have not had the culture to trust their parents with their lives, they do not confide in anyone else as well. They chose to follow the internet guidelines they searched. The escalating suicidal rates among young people in America is proof enough of this menace. Parents end up confused and depressed as their children always seemed happy and in control of their lives before their suicidal attempts.
Mobile phones slavery has seen the downfall of many successful people. The time dedicated to phones by young people is rather long. Students, for example, have been late in submissions of their assignments or probably never finished it at all. They end up failing in their examinations because they did not read. Young employees are inclusive in the casualties. Most of their masters have resulted in sacking them because they never do anything productive thanks to their mobile phone addictions.
Have you tried to cut a group of teenagers off the network like cut their Wi-Fi connection or mobile network? If yes, then you have experienced what mobile slavery has made our youth. I happened to experience this scenario first hand. We attended a family vacation with most of my mother’s friends who tagged their families along as well. We stayed in a very luxurious hotel with a plethora of amenities ranging from Wi-Fi, a giant waterfall, a disco within, a video-game arcade and many other activities aimed at catching the attention of teenagers. Most parents, however, chose not to pay for the Wi-Fi. I’ll tell you this, most of the teenagers decided to lie in their beds in the rooms or stay in the lobbies looking bored.
Others chose to sneak out and drink alcohol they bought with their pocket money. Apparently, the young people’s minds have been corrupted because video-game sand massive waterfalls are things worth exploring but they didn’t give it a try. All these situations have caused problems that seem hard to fix.
To help solve this menace, we have to agree that our mobile phones don’t connect us to the outside world, but they create a wall between us and the neighboring community. We no longer remember a life before instant access to the internet which is why we become vegetables without our mobile phones. The best and working solution would be to turn off our mobile phones for a period and explore our options.
However, our phones are essential tools of our lives in as much as we insist on the harm they cause. Therefore, we cannot afford to switch them off completely. I have come up with better solutions that any teenager would find flexible.
Once in a while we should put the phone in silent mode to avoid distractions. There are times we utterly can’t be disturbed and we know that yet we let our phones disrupt us. Spare chunks of time to completely dedicate your focus on more important stuff like your partner and driving. Switch off the phone’s sound notification when on vacations, extra household time or personal time to benefit and enjoy yourself completely
Turning the phone’s notification flicker off is another solution. Things don’t need to get awkward because we are oblivious of a text or email instant notification. It will take a longer time to adjust to not always checking your phone. However, this will make one create particular time to check and reply to texts or emails. Eventually, we reduce the urge to check our mobile phones whenever we see notification flash.
Whenever we pick up our phones, we want to use them. Therefore, we ought to do that instead of letting the cell phones “use us.” Every time we take our phones to use we need to have a plan and stick to it. If we want to access our emails and reply to an inbox, we ought to do exactly that. That will avoid us from doing other uncalled for activities like browsing the internet.
Depending on what we are doing we ought to screen our notifications. If we are busy with family, for example, we don’t need to reply to everyone who contacts us. We, therefore, need to establish the urgency of the person in such a situation to decide if you require responding totem immediately. No one on the other side knows if you are available or not so you can choose to pick up the phone or not.
The last thing that we ought to do is set aside a time when we check our phones so that we don’t miss out on anything important. For example, we can check our messages every once in five hours to prevent our messages from accumulating.
However, the time we choose to have check-ins depends on one’s personality. So it is up to person to figure out what works for them. The primary objective remains to refrain from checking our phones now and then.