I DO SEE PEOPLE AROUND ME SPENDING AN AWFUL LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HANDHELD DEVICES.
Does it matter that smartphones have integrated themselves into our everyday lives? Or rather how can I be impacted by a phone? It's just a little gadget after all. Let's say for a moment that young children in elementary schools start to own smartphones as commonly as college students do. This would affect the way children interact and form groups starting at a very young age. instead of swinging and playing gravel, children will be spending more time on cellphones whether is be playing angry birds, sending text messages, or starting social media profiles.
Furthermore you will be distracted by the digital life you have created for yourself on your smartphone. Like all things in life. This line lies on a spectrum. By personal experience my friends and family have been spending more and more time on their cellular devices. The most I have ever seen. I will look up sometimes only to be greeted by the tops of heads and eyes gazing downward at screens. As more people spend more time on their phones we progress closer and closer to the line where the nominal gain that smartphones bring us in utility is not worth the time spent. College students perceive smartphones as "symbolic device(s) to signal their affiliation and timely technology adoption" and that means that we're always going to want to have the latest and greatest devices. What's next contacts with embedded screens, virtual reality? Only time will tell.
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In a professional study three graduate students concluded that current smartphone users "were highly interested in instant information and communication such as SNS" which are Social Networking Services like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (Kim). The more integrated smartphones become into our society, the more time people are going to be spending their time, and attention on these devices. The more time we spend on devices, the less time we have to spend elsewhere. Smartphones help add utility to our lives, but I think we can also agree that there is a line that separates utility and zeal. The line is really hard to define or even explore because most times we don't reach the point where the nominal returns of utility fade as the amount of time we spend on smartphones increases. But there IS a line. If you spend all of your day looking at your smartphone you won't be able to give your peers, and professors the attention that a normal human in that situation should receive.
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