Apple unveiled its first iPhone in 2007. I was at work waiting tables when I first saw one, held by a young man showing his significant other all the fancy things it could do. He was even excited to show it off to me. However, while curious because I had read about the hysteria surrounding its release, it didn’t seem that appealing to me. And can you imagine that he spent $500 on that thing (about $700 in 2022 dollars)!?
I proudly waited another nine years before caving to the smartphone trend. By then, these little devices were everywhere. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see elementary-school-aged children with a smartphone. Yet here I was, nine years into my professional career and I still had to ask my wife to pull up directions on Google Maps if we were driving somewhere new downtown.
Simpler times.
The Dawn of a New Era
Those nine non-smartphone years for me were interesting because I could see what was gradually happening to others as smartphone adoption became ubiquitous. People started walking around out in public staring at their screens rather than taking in what was around them. Too busy texting, reading, or playing games to notice what was happening in their real lives.
When kids get together in groups now, there is a phrase for when they’re all staring at their individual screens instead of interacting with one another: “alone together,” as social scientist Sherry Turkle puts it.
The Rise of Time Vampires
Social media, which I like to think of as a wolf in sheep’s clothing,* has made this worse. Mobile games have made this worse.
The problem with these things is that they have been created by giant companies who prioritize profit. I’m not passing judgment—it’s simply a fact, and it’s the main reason most companies exist. In order to drive higher profits, companies that provide “free” apps on your smartphone attempt to capture your attention for the longest possible time.
Take Facebook, for example. It’s one of the OGs in this sphere. Facebook employs an army of data scientists whose sole purpose is to help Facebook increase its session usage time among users. Then, its other data scientists find ways to monetize this usage time. This is just what these companies do. And from what I’ve seen over the years—they’re quite good at it.
Unplug, Dammit!
The more we’re aware of this, the better we can ensure we avoid it. The next time you find yourself in a group of people who have their faces buried in their pocket supercomputers, you can chuckle to yourself and think “the data scientists are really earning their paychecks today.”**
Then, resolve to not be a sheep.
No matter what, we should all do a better job recognizing that although smartphones and the internet are amazing tools, they are not where real life happens. Look up once in a while.
*Social media had the promise of connecting the entire world together. I think it has spurred more loneliness than connection, as it has isolated more and more people who think they’re socially interacting but are actually lacking in quality human relationships as a result. I’m nervous for a future like Wall-E.
**Facebook senior data scientists earn, on average, north of $200k per year. They are definitely incentivized to steal your time.
Amen! Soon we’ll only need eyes and fingers to use our phones; legs will be optional.