Nomophobia. The proposed name for the fear of being without your mobile phone that affects approximately 77% of American teens. I used to be part of this 77%. I always had my phone in my hand or back pocket. When I slept my phone was right next to my bed. When being driven somewhere, I had to be looking at my phone or else I’d be bored. This obsession with my phone ruled my life, that is until my phone was broken. While walking into my math class, scrolling through my instagram feed, I bumped into someone and dropped it. When I picked up my phone and saw that my screen was shattered, I felt like my world was shattered. I fearfully pressed the power button to see if the screen would turn on again. It didn’t. I had to wait about two weeks until I was able to get a new phone. I found myself …show more content…
While walking through my school during passing periods I noticed 4 different people I had never realized before that I had gone to elementary school that now went to my same high school. I began to feel like there was way more time in my day too. Now that I wasn’t always watching makeup videos on Instagram I had more time to do my homework, spend time with my family, and just relax. While doing more research on the effects of less phone use in people’s lives I became more assured that this simple act of just being able to relax instead of feeling the need to always be connected to everyone else’s lives, can actually improve your own life. Before losing my phone when I had any down time I would occupy my myself with my phone because just sitting and thinking seemed boring. With a phone to no longer rob me of moments of solitude, which psychologists say is key to relieving daily stress, I felt that my life was more orderly and my well being was bettered. But what about the other approximate 10 million teens in the US whose lives are still ruled by their
My main problem that I possess when it comes to my phone dependency is how to fill my free time with efficient activities like reading, homework, or other things. When I went through school without using social media, I was much more attentive in class and I did not really miss the connection I had with my phone. I also discovered that I do not deal with the “fear of missing out” because in actuality I did not miss out on a single thing. Identifying this fact enabled me to understand that thinking I need my phone because something important could potentially arise is a complete lie that I feed to myself to give a “valid” excuse that I need to be connected to my phone at all times of the day. This challenge revealed to me how detrimental social media could become if I keep using it extensively. I have read several articles about how media are physically altering our brain in a bad way and leading to a lack of essential skills in people, mainly in the millennial generation. This made me question if new media has contributed to the rise of social anxiety in individuals or aided the downfall of literacy in America today. This project has truly opened my eyes with my personal media use and the potential risks that can spawn from abusing
“The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health” (Twenge). In her article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, Jean Twenge discusses how the new generation of teenagers is becoming highly dependent on their smartphones. Twenge calls this new generation born between the late 1990s and early teens “iGen” after a recent survey found that the majority of teenagers owned an iPhone. She argues that with every new generation, new habits form, both good and bad. The technological developments that have occurred throughout the last ten years, Twenge argues, is not a bad thing; it is how the “iGen” teenagers are becoming reliant on their phones and use them to avoid social interactions. According to her article, teenagers choose to stay home alone in their rooms and talk to their friends virtually on social media versus actually leaving the house and doing something face-to-face with their friends. Twenge argues that if teenagers decide to leave the house, phones still have a strong presence, often not leaving the hands of its owner for longer than a couple minutes with social media like Snapchat and Instagram tagging along. Twenge worries that the strong dependency on smartphones and increasing rates of obsession with social media are a couple of the largest contributors to the rise of depression and suicide among the teenagers of “iGen”.
Studies have found that as the phone use increases, your attention goes elsewhere, “revealing that the more heavily student relied on their phones in their everyday lives, the greater the cognitive penalty they suffered” (Carr 3). The more focus a cell phone receives the more a person will suffer mentally. At UCSD around 520 students were given two standardized tests of intellectual acuity. “The only variable in the experiment was the location of the subjects’ smartphones. Some of the students.. place their phones in front of them on their desks; others were told to stow their phones in their pockets.. others were required to leave their phones in a different room” (Carr 3). The results from this study were conspicuous. It’s self-evident that anyone with phone insight had worst scores than those who didn't have their phones at all or had them in their pockets. Technology has take over us and it is draining our
The AVID weekly article says, “Do get on your phone in front of family or friends to look up important, relevant information. This shows that if we do bring in more devices then we can try teach to use phones only when needed. The quote also shows that not all teens use their phones when there is no need for using them. The Scholastic article says, “94% of teens who have a smart phone use it daily.” This quote shows that if we do bring in other devices that it would more likely be easier to use them because teens use their phones so much. The quote also supports that it would less likely happen of someone breaking the devices because so much people would know how to use the devices. The AVID weekly and Scholastic article show that teens use their phones a large amount of time but it can be a good thing and a very bad thing result
Jean Twenge’s article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, uses multiple points to explain how she believes smartphones are hurting the health of the post-Millennial generation. She repeatedly makes the point that this new wave of teenagers lacks an interest in gaining freedom from their parents and other restrictions in their lives. For example, Twenge wrote that post-Millennials are getting their driver's licenses significantly later than the Baby Boomer generation and often wait to get jobs until after they graduate because they don’t need to physically get away from their parents to connect online with their friends. Twenge also makes the argument that iPhones are causing an increase in depression and anxiety rates among
Being tethered to a phone, as opposed to simply having and using one, has become the norm and does more harm than good at times. People, especially teenagers, cannot seem to put the phones down. Some even admit to being addicted to their smart phones and experience anxiety when they are without it. According to Ellen Gibson, author of “Sleep with Your iPhone? You're Not Alone”, more than thirty-five percent of adults in the U.S. have a smart phone; two thirds of those people actually sleep with their phone due to the anxiety they feel from the thought of missing something such as a text, phone call, email, or social media posting. Gibson states “…being away from their phone will almost certainly cause separation anxiety… some people have become so dependent on being able to use their smartphones to go online anytime, anywhere, that without that access, they ‘can no longer handle their daily routine’”. To some, being addicted to a phone is like being addicted to a drug; there is a strong dependency that makes it hard to focus or concentrate on anything else. After speaking with a group of students from Cranston High School in Connecticut, Turkle says “These young people live in a state of waiting for connection. And they are willing to take risks, to put themselves on the line. Several admit that tethered to their phones, they get into accidents when walking” (236). This is an issue that will
The invention of the smartphone has drastically changed every part of a teenager’s life, from their social life to their mental health. These shifts have hurt young people in every part of the nation and in every family dynamic. From the decline of social interaction with their peers, to an increase of mental illnesses such as depression, the use of cell phones have lead to the correlation between these epidemics. There are some positives to this situation; teens nowadays are safer and don’t go out as much, and more teens are having less sex, thus leading to lower teen pregnancy rates. In the article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation,” Jean M. Twenge effectively argues that smartphones have had a negative impact on teen’s social lives by making them more prone to being antisocial; however, she is incorrect when she argues that smartphones have a negative impact on mental health and independency because correlation does not equal causation.
One of the major problems in the world today is the dependency that teenagers have on their cell phones. The majority of people depend on their cell phones for everything that they do. They feel like they have to constantly check it to look at what is new on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. They forget to focus on the world around them and become absorbed in the online world. Some suffer from panic attacks if they don’t have their phone with them. They might not need their phone, but they have to have it with them.
Technology has impacted and influenced how people function and devote their time immensely. With the creation of smartphones, computers, and social networks, people have adopted them into their lives and use them daily, which creates a dependence on these devices. An immoderate dependence upon technology is a state that humanity has come to in today’s age that permits people to believe that they essentially cannot function without it. The fear of not having one’s cellphone or being in a position where one’s cellphone cannot be used, whether it be because of a dead battery or having no signal, is known as nomophobia. This phobia can be described as a cell phone separation anxiety. Even though technology
In this editorial, Live Science writer Kelly Dickerson found in a study that people who pulled out cell phones throughout a discussion found the conversation less rewarding. She claims that the compulsion to check our cell phones and the essential to stay tied into the straight network system can make people withdraw from their current activities, and it can produce anger between them and their family and friends. Cell phones are not only taking away the time alone to damage our associations with others, but we have similarly lost the incapability with people without watching at our phones and being present with another person.
Personally, I cannot function through the day without my phone. This is a serious problem, as technology is evolving, we are losing the control of our lives. Kids are becoming anti social, which often leads to depression. As a result. suicide rates have risen immensely.
Everybody has some kind of routine they follow. Whether it be a small ritual you do when you get up in the morning, or it be your daily schedule. There has got to be something in your day that if you don’t do, you feel weird. For most teenagers these days, or anyone for that matter, it might be checking their cell phone. Let’s take that for example. Most people with any kind of money have a cell phone. What about those who are just scraping by? They don’t have money to waste on something so unnecessary. They’re normal day is probably way different from the average cell phone owner. Someone with a cell phone, or to be more specific: a smartphone, would probably have a chaotic day without their phones because they tend to center their lives around this device.
Everywhere you go teens seem to be glued to their phones, tablets, or computers. Technology is an addiction that does not seem to be going away any time soon. According to the Washington Post, teens can spend up to seven or more hours on their digital devices a day and the usage is still increasing. Not surprisingly enough, more than a third of all teenagers own a cellphone, ranging from a smart phone or just a plain old-school flip phone. But can spending all that time on their computers and smart devices be such a bad thing? Today’s easy access, always on world presents a wealth of opportunity for teens as students, but also challenges them to retain them essential humanity and unique personalities.
Nomophobia is the fear of being removed from mobile contact. Just twenty years ago and mobile phones were obsolete. Now, we have a word for the fear of being separated from our phone.
Arachophobia-is one of the most widespread phobias. I chose that phobia, because I am a spider expert and it is interesting why someone’s afraid of that cute being. Personally, I think it is silly to be scared of spiders, because only 10% of spiders are poisonous. That’s why I’d like to explore this phobia, find medication and learn how heavy might be consequences. According to the American Psychiatric Association, approximatelyarachnophobia affect 3 in 10 people, and it takes 1 place in a most common phobias. Interesting, isn’t it?