We live our lives at what could be considered the speed of light to someone from just one hundred years ago. What is possible today would be just as awe inspiring as someone levitating with no strings attached to a person straight out of the past. With all these advancements we’ve rung up quite a few costs at the cash register, damage to our ecosystem is not the only price to pay.
On a drive through my town the other day I took note of, as I do quite often, the sheer amount of people looking down at their phone amidst whatever activities they were engaged in. The number of people absorbed in this activity has certainly increased dramatically since current events have been making waves throughout the world. While our phones are certainly extremely useful and potentially valuable tools to have in our utility belt, we should be aware of the cost if we are to become wholly absorbed in it. Applications to show just how much time one spends on their phone do exist. If you’ve never examined this statistic and you feel you use your phone quite a bit, give one of them a try! The results may surprise you.
While we engage with these gadgets life is passing us by. Life is all around us all the time but it is up to us to connect with it. Interestingly enough many studies have found that overuse of these gadgets actually increases anxieties and feelings of unwell in people. We reach out to these technologies and form this bond that can be especially useful but it can also be quite parasitic. Steve Jobs, creator of the i-phone, was once noted to talk about the mirror like nature of a smartphone screen. He said that he particularly enjoyed this feature because we see ourselves in the phone’s screen before it is activated. He hoped that this would make us think of ourselves.
Mr. Jobs never actually meant for the smartphone to evolve into what it became as he has pointed out before. If the creator of such a device held such views on it maybe what has been discussed here is something worth looking into. Monitoring our use of our smartphones and other technologies can help us identify opportunities for growth. We can pry at these minutes used up by our phones until they turn into hours. Those hours may be where we find our leverage to evolve in a world that feels so pressed for time.
“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
Steve Jobs
Jordan Hutchison 