Everyday Pros and Cons of Your Smartphone

What Does it Mean to Evaluate the Everyday Pros and Cons of Smartphone Use?

Approximately 50.4% of teenagers ages 12-17 have four hours or more of screen time. Of that 50.4%, 27.1% were more likely to have symptoms of anxiety, and 25.9% were more likely to have symptoms of depression. For teenagers with less than four hours of screen time, the results show 12.3% and 9.5%, respectively. So, what does this data mean? Are all teenagers doomed for the future because of "doom scrolling" and procrastination? Well, not exactly.

The topic of smartphone use is not exempt from existing without considering both positive and negative effects, especially when our society is increasingly becoming more complex in the digital age. Generative artificial intelligence systems, expansion of 5G mobile networks, biotechnology in agriculture, autonomous vehicles, and space tourism are all examples that demonstrate the innovative methods that our world is leading towards.

With all the new advanced technology, such as our smartphones, it has become increasingly important to recognize the true effects that our smartphones offer. Are our smartphones genuinely helping us, or are they hurting us?

Increasing Productivity and Organization

There is no doubt that our smartphones and digital devices have transformed the way we manage our time, tasks, and overall productivity. In today's fast-paced world, mobile technology plays a critical role in helping individuals stay organized and focused throughout the day.

Platforms such as Google Workspace (formerly Google Suite), including Google Calendar, Google Drive, Docs, and Slides, allow users to self-manage their priorities and tasks, store important files, and collaborate with others from virtually anywhere in the world with an internet connection. With the portability of smartphones, we don't have to solely access these tools from our desktops or laptops, avoiding the hassle of carrying around large devices altogether.

Entertainment and Relaxation

Smartphones can be a source of entertainment for many individuals. Apps like YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify are popular among individuals of all ages. After a tiring day of work or school, diverging from the reality of life offers a much-needed break that is necessary for our brains to rest.

Whether you are commuting, taking a break at a local spot, or unwinding in the comfort of your own home, smartphones offer endless opportunities to enjoy your leisure time. Video streaming platforms allow us to watch our favorite movies and shows at the touch of our fingers while curating short-form content that we scroll through to soon detach from the stimulus around us.

Besides visual contact, smartphones offer the ability to download mobile games, music, and audiobooks that can give way for users to personalize their relaxation. These individual experiences are user-specific and can be adapted to one's preferences, giving way to entertain and relax in any way we want.

Staying Connected with Our Family, Friends, and Loved Ones

When phones were first introduced into modern society, we mainly implemented them into our lives to simply call others. While smartphones can do much more than they could before, smartphones have advanced in the field of connecting with others. People can text each other, record voice messages, send images and funny GIFs, and so much more.

For foreign communication, smartphones give way to breaking international barriers that come with not being able to communicate all the time unless you visit them. WeChat and WhatsApp are popular apps that Americans utilize to communicate with their relatives and friends back in their home country, especially with the East Asian diaspora in the United States. According to PEW Research Center, 91% of English-speaking Asian Americans own a smartphone!

Screen Time and Increasing Eye Strain

Although smartphones offer many features, more than we can imagine, this may inherently be a downside for many. When smartphones do all of our tasks for us, it can cause us to become more lazy in certain situations. Whether it be relying on a search engine to answer all of our minuscule questions instead of intuitively thinking, inputting our homework into artificial intelligence software to solve it for us, or offloading essential information from our brain, such as a passport number or social security number.

One of the major contributing factors to one's increased screen time is largely due to streaming services that showcase movies, shows, short clips, reels, and also from social media networking platforms that include Instagram, X (Twitter), Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, just to name a few. The endless scrolling that all of these platforms offer can make users feel inclined to keep watching more and more, therefore increasing eye strain.

Scientists have proven that short-form content on our smartphones has led people to experience a decline in mindful, attentive awareness among university students. Individuals may also be more inclined to prioritize this form of entertainment, leading to restless nights of bingeing on content from our smartphones. Being such a small device that we can easily access makes it so that smartphones are within reach and reduces the need for physical effort.

Impacts on Mental Health

Staying on our smartphones for long periods can impede our mental health. You may have heard of the term "doom scrolling", referring to endlessly swiping on social media platforms. Doom scrolling is a popular phenomenon, and many individuals, especially adolescents, get quickly caught up in a trance of always wanting more. Social media platforms may lead to the spread of misinformation and unrealistic expectations that many will surely fail to meet. In doing so, individuals have lower self-esteem and distorted perspectives of themselves.

Mental health behaves just like physical health, worthy of more recognition in our modern society, even if it can not be seen with our eyes. Smartphones lead to a sense of dependency, a feeling that our lives are based on our phones and that we can not function without them. 

Constant notifications, comparison culture, and the pressure to maintain an online presence often overwhelm users, leaving them with less time for self-care and self-reflection. As we keep incorporating smartphone use into our lives, individuals may be subjected to cycles of continuous procrastination and disrupting our natural way of communication in real life.

References / Works Cited

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Columbia University. (2023). Smartphones, Social Media, and Their Impact on Mental Health. Columbia University Department of Psychiatry; Columbia University. https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/research/research-areas/child-and-adolescent-psychiatry/sultan-lab-mental-health-informatics/research-areas/smartphones-social-media-and-their-impact-mental-health

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Husain, M., Mushtaq, Dr. N., Mahsud, Dr. N. K., Afzal, H., Naseer, S., & Hussain, D. (2024, February). The Effect of Social Media Addiction on Attention Span and Aggression among University Students. Https://Www.researchgate.net/. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Muhammad-Hussain-223/publication/381403305_Effect_of_Social_Media_Addiction_on_Attention_Span_and_Aggression_among_University_Students/links/666b9e3d85a4ee7261c0ef4f/Effect-of-Social-Media-Addiction-on-Attention-Span-and-Aggression-among-University-Students.pdf

Lavin, S. (2024, January 13). Opinion: I bought a flip phone and tried to get by without my smartphone. Here’s how that went. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-13/smartphone-flip-phone-cellphone-iphone-droid-tech-detox

Marathe, A., & Kanage, R. (2024). Decrease In Attention Span Due To Short-Format Content on Social Media (pp. 1–8). Mahratta. http://mahratta.org/CurrIssue/November_2024/1.%20Decrease%20in%20attention%20span%20due%20to%20short%20format%20content%20on%20Social%20Media%20_Marathe_Kanage.pdf

Perrin, A. (2016, February 18). English-speaking Asian Americans stand out for their technology use. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/18/english-speaking-asian-americans-stand-out-for-their-technology-use

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