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Technology has always been helping us but be careful because it not only changes what we do and how we do it, but also our behavior and even who we are.
In fact, cell phone dependence can create (and is already doing so) conflicts in the perception of our identity.
Many things have changed that may have been unacceptable before and are now accepted without reservation.
If while you were at a meeting or dinner someone took out a book and started reading, or put some letters from the mail they received and started opening them and reading them, what would you think?
This is what we do with the cell phone instead.
1. Cell phone addiction is associated with higher levels of stress
Now in the middle of anything, a lesson, a dinner, a work meeting, there are many who can’t stop looking at messages, chatting or even playing under the table.
However, this comes at a high cost: professional and personal consequences for abusing technology.
A survey by the American Psychological Association found that being constantly and permanently accessible on an electronic device, checking work emails on your day off, continuously browsing social media, or responding to text messages at all hours, is associated with higher levels of stress.
I often see it from my 14 year old daughter, she finds it difficult to look around during a car journey and has an addiction to cell phones and other technologies to the point of distancing her from the present, without realizing it we escape to another place, we want to be everywhere, not we want to miss nothing, and perhaps thus we lose everything without being able to pay attention to anything.
2. Attention residue: more effort and less productivity
Sophie Leroy, a professor at the University of Washington, coined the term “Residual Attention” for the effect that occurs when people lose their attention or due to some interruption leave one task without ending up moving on to another (seeing their affected performance).
This blurring forces us to refocus our attention, and every time this happens it generates a fragmentation of focus that leaves a “residue of attention” that generates more stress and fatigue.
As if it were an addiction, it seems that we can only pay attention to what truly interests us or “entertains” us.
It seems that if there is a moment of pause, of silence, of lack of entertainment, the alarm goes off when we hear our own thoughts and, instantly, our mind flees in search of something interesting that calms the sudden anxiety (for something other than to fill us up or for fear of missing something).
We separate ourselves from real life and immerse ourselves in a virtual one, we escape towards an imaginary life, perhaps the one we would like to have and that desire, that unconscious comparison, makes our present a worse place from which we would like to escape.
We have all seen or experienced that moment when a couple is immersed in their cell phone separately, relationships in which we feel and are alone but together.
3. Nomophobia: previously it was said I think, therefore I am, now it is I share, therefore I am
Technology is fantastic, but on too many occasions it leads us to live further from reality, and in real relationships life is more complicated.
In real life we make mistakes, we make mistakes, we correct ourselves, we fall, we get back up, we apologize, we take risks, we have hopes, disappointments, joys, hugs, life is that huge and unpredictable emotional rollercoaster.
In the virtual one, from the safety of the cave where no one can see me, I can connect and show the world how I want to be seen, how I would like my life to be.
Nomophobia (irrational fear of spending a period of time without a cell phone) is already a reality and before it was said I think, therefore I am, now I share, therefore I am.
From there I control, I can edit my life, show only the good, erase the negative and fake any perfect emotion or situation, without fear of finding out my true feelings or how I really am, because otherwise they might find out that I feel like a fraud.
We show ourselves how we want to be perceived because we want to be appreciated, we try to impress because we want to be admired, we want to escape loneliness, to be visible, even if in reality we are trying to feel good enough and worthy of being loved.
From my phone’s perspective I can control my life or what my life looks like, I can think about what I’m going to say, I can copy, paste, edit, touch up and have it look much better and more interesting.
But many can hardly have a good conversation in person, because the fear of rejection appears, of being discovered.
4. Recovering quality relationships must be one of our priorities
Do we really know each other online or when we are in front of that person and we look at each other, listen to each other and feel each other?
When we dare, when we look into each other’s eyes and feel like ourselves, when we are most vulnerable and authentic, because only then do we truly connect; when we see that we all have those fears, when we understand and feel understood (and not judged), we achieve that necessary human connection that gives more meaning to everything.
Today we know – because science has proven it – that one of the keys to happiness is based on the quality of our relationships.
Therefore, recovering those quality human connections must be one of our priorities.
We need to look at digital screens less, look into each other’s eyes more and feel each other.
So make that call, stay, disconnect and connect with nature, with real people to get out of your internal monologue.
Originally posted 2023-09-26 21:20:27.
