Today, it is impossible to imagine the world without the technological advancements that provide comfort and a rich experience. Smartphones became a common gadget for any person as a means of communication, playing, and spending time. Not only adults, but also children, adolescents, and older adults use this device every day. While smartphones are expected to connect people across places and time, they split people’s attention, cause a sense of loss, and reduce the quality of communication.
When friends gather together to celebrate some event or spend a good evening, they use their phones, which disintegrates them. According to Turkle, the trend is that empathetic conversations become rare and short. The eye to eye contact as well as noticing one’s posture and gestures are given little attention. It happens on an everyday basis, and parents do not understand that their children need open conversations and sincere opinions instead of factual information taken from Google.
The solution to this problem is the assumption that people are resilient and can change their behaviors. A recent study shows that children who spent five days at the cap without their smartphones increased their ability to identify each other’s emotions (Uhls et al. 389). The device-free experiments also suggest that self-reflection is a result of loneliness that provides time for exploring one’s self. This means that modern mobile devices are not only accessories but also psychologically powerful gadgets. Therefore, it is important to reconsider their use in terms of human values and the role of communication. The limited use, “do not disturb” option, or some other solutions should be made to ensure that people would not lose their ability to hear and understand each other.
Works Cited
Turkle, Sherry. “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk.” The New York Times. 2015, Web.
Uhls, Yalda T., et al. “Five Days at Outdoor Education Camp Without Screens Improves Preteen Skills With Nonverbal Emotion Cues.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 39, 2014, pp. 387-392.