Impact of Smartphones: How Technology Makes Us Lonely

Did you know that being lonely can be dangerous by increasing the risk of death by 26 percent rather than being overweight? Technology has come a long way in such a short period of time. From one of the first computers (Apple Lisa) in 1983 to the first iPhone in 2007. Let’s face it, everyone has a smartphone within a couple of feet up for grabs, however, it has grown and adapted to us humans and some could say that it has been making us lonely or connecting us more with people through messaging, video chats, and social media. Technology, specifically your smartphone, makes people more lonely due to a large amount of time spent on social media, and the majority of teen community suffer this dilemma.

Teens with smartphones are everywhere and they’re always distracted by them, disabling their interactions with the real world. If you just go outside and look around, you will see almost every person walking while using their phone. Walking into a restaurant, you’ll see almost every family on their phone, ignoring each other focusing on their phones and not utilizing their time spent to talk to each other. According to Gray (2015), “During the study, researchers looked at a whopping 150,000 posts over the course of six months. In the end, the team discovered one common thread between the motivation each teen had for looking at social media: popularity”. This demonstrates the huge impact of teens using their phones just to check their social media. Teens allowed for this happen because they feel lonely, a person would not always check their Instagram to see how many likes and comments they’ve gotten if they weren’t lonely. Think this to yourself, when you’re alone, you go on your phone. When you are with friends you are on your phone ignoring each other. This shows how lonely a person can be even when you are out in the public with others, and this is because teens use their phones to block the void of quietness. Instead, teens should block the loneliness with sports, movie night with friends, playing board games with friends and family, exercising, etc.

Admittedly, some people say technology helps reconnect with one another and does not make an individual lonely. This point of view makes sense because of Reisenwitz (2016), an author and Editor-in-Chief of her state writes,

But in what future will technology end the need to get out of your house (the stick) without providing an equally powerful incentive to do so anyway (the carrot)? Look at Pokemon GO. Thousands of people outside their homes not because they have to be outside, but because a game developer found a way to profit from making walking around outside more fun than it was before.

On the other hand, Pokemon GO lasted for a couple of months and consumers went back to themselves being on their phone lonely. Applications like Pokemon GO are only there temporarily and don’t fix the major problem; loneliness. As stated in an article by Gary (2015) she reports, “...our phones can influence our lives even when we try not to think about them. If you've ever felt that your phone was ringing or vibrating only to pick it up and see nothing has happened, you're not alone. Yes, these so-called phantom phone vibrations.” This goes further into not only making people feel lonely but making them feel like they're going crazy by hearing things. A person thinks it rings but in reality when the person picks up their phone there’s nothing on it which makes anyone think that they may have gotten a notification because you are simply lonely. As a result, even though people create applications to help solve the loneliness by implementing into a phone to get them out to see other people, it’s only temporary and doesn’t solve the main problem.

Given these points, technology is influencing an individual to feel lonely. Specifically, smartphones take away your thought of going outdoors and communicating with each other in person and in doing so, it creates a void of loneliness that is hard to recover from. Technology (smartphones) also creates a negative imagination where it allows you to think that you may receive a message, however, in reality, you are seeing things. This is what makes you feel even more lonely. Don’t be a victim like these teens and limit your interactions with your smartphone. Cherish the world that we already have, not a virtual one.