After much deliberation I’ve come to the rather difficult decision
that me and my iPhone need to take a break from our rather full on and at times
volatile relationship before things get any worse.
My smart phone virginity was taken over a year ago and since
then we have become extremely close. Every spare moment is consumed with a
‘quick’ browse of Facebook or another sly game of Temple Run when no one's
looking. It’s not that I don’t love my iPhone, because trust me I do, the main
problem is that I am ADDICTED to it.
Before the Smartphone life takeover (rather dramatic I know)
myself and the majority of the world had to physically communicate with those
around us. Awkward situations couldn’t
simply be resolved by pretending to be’ busy’ on your mobile…back in the day
there was only a number of tools you had on your Nokia 3310 to make it look
like you were pre occupied.
With thousands of apps to download and busy yourself with on
the train, on your lunch break, whilst watching TV with your other half and
dare I say at the dinner table, (because I’m pretty sure some people would even stretch
to that) I think it’s fair to say that we have become a generation of
unsociable Smartphone addicts!
Don’t get me wrong, my phone allows me to keep up to date
with the world around me. A quick swipe of the lock screen and a delicate tap
on the BBC News or the Daily Mail app and I can see a round up of the latest
news in a few short seconds; much quicker than loading up my extremely slow and
half functioning laptop for it to eventually decide that it doesn’t want to
work today.
And then there’s Twitter not only great for communicating
with friends but also a handy tool for helping me to secure my dream job. With tweets
from industry professionals and media organisations it allows me to see
straight away new vacancies in the journalism world. I could go on forever trying to convince myself that it’s ok to have my phone practically strapped to my hand all day, but that would make for an extremely boring read. Yes it may be beneficial for me to access my emails wherever and whenever, but what’s not necessary is the constant scouring of social media sites every five minutes whilst I sit at home feeling rather bored on my day off. Nor is it necessary, myself not included, to take pictures of everything we eat, drink and buy, making it look pretty with some fancy photo effect before posting it on every social media outlet available.
If we all perhaps added together the number of minutes, or dare I say hours, that we spend on our smart phones each day and instead used the time to communicate face to face with the people around us, I am almost certain that the world would be a much happier place. Bring back the old school flip phone I say!
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