This is an essay i wrote for English class regarding todays' societal obsession with the wireless world. I admit, I've got an iPhone and love it but I really have noticed that it is taking a toll on my relationships with my friends and family.
iPhones:
Taking Over the World, One Generation at a Time
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times…it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us,” said Dickens in his famous first lines of A Tale of Two Cities. Our modern world
has likewise become a “best of times” and a “worst of times,” and a major
contributing factor is the Apple iPhone. These
smartphones offer user connectivity to friends elsewhere through messaging,
access to internet sites through Wi-Fi or 3G, and relief from boredom through
gaming apps. However, many would agree that such widespread use of these
devices has begun to affect modern society and social skills. American youths’
widespread use of iPhones has adversely effected negative interpersonal
interactions at many societal and behavioral levels.
Slowly but surely,
iPhone use destroys the fullness of social interaction. What used to be
opportunities to catch up with friends in person, to share common, if mundane,
experiences between friends at social gatherings have now become nice
background noise and atmospheres in which to engage in the activity happening
on the wireless network in other, absent, friends’ lives. Face to face
interaction when not done through the Facetime video messaging of the iPhones
becomes almost a forced task. For many it becomes an interrogation sparking no
conversation broken by awkward pauses and routine checks of any signs of
messaging or notification from social media sites. This inability to converse stems,
in part, from ever-popular texting. One simply types a message to a friend,
awaits a response, and then, upon receiving one, can carefully concoct a witty,
adequate reply to the friends’ message in whatever time allowance needed for a
spark of brilliance to hit the author. This delayed response while in wireless
conversation destructs human creativity and quickness of wit in physical
conversation is most likely the culprit of awkward face to face conversations.
Teenagers today can
barely perform any task or make any public appearance without the accompaniment
of their respective iPhones. In my experience, on an afternoon at a restaurant
for lunch with close friends, small talk and gossip was exchanged while waiting
for the waiter, punctuated by natural pauses for breath and lulls in
conversation in which everyone in the group paused to check the electronic source
of vibration on the table. A friend checked her phone and all the others
likewise did the same, attempting to avoid sitting there looking as though one
had no friends or interests outside the immediate present. Situations such as
this recur often and something drastically wrong remains with this image. What is
this mindset that the present isn’t good enough? Not just the present, but the
present group of people. If one’s friends do not feel as though the
conversation sparks enough interest to hold their attention they simply lose
themselves in wireless interaction. How disrespectful! What an insult to that
individual’s intelligence and persona that his or her friends do not give the
time of day to listen to what he or she has to say. These people cannot truly
remain considered as friends, yet this happens daily in every environment.
Because of repeat instances in which individuals let the wireless world engulf
them while in the presence of friends, the steady availability of outside
conversation and media disrupts and destroys conversation.
IPhone use has also
begun adversely effecting family relationships and interactions. BBC news
filmed a British family whose mother openly admits to their collective
addiction to smartphones. Clips of the family at the dinner table show them
eating dinner in silence, each captivated by his or her respective iPhone or
similar smart phone. Later clips show even the baby of the family absorbed in
her own world of TV shows via the various movie or television show apps. This
family, and others like it, has lost the concept of what it means to interact
as a family. Individuals have no disconnecting or unplugging from their devices
and cannot forget about or avoid the world outside. The home was formerly a
time to unwind, relax, do a little work if necessary, but to mostly enjoy
spending time with the people whom one should be closest. IPhones offer a
constant ability to remain attached and connected to anything and everything
happening in the outside world and destroy the concept of family time and down
time. They have brought silence to the quintessential family dinners. IPhones
and the constant connectivity to the outside world that accompanies them take
away from family relationships and destroy the family dynamic.
IPhones also cause
distraction from menial tasks, jobs, and homework. The many dangers of texting
while driving are prominently displayed in the media, but an even larger source
of distraction is the constant notifications and vibrations on the iPhone
screens. They also provide music to listen to while driving yet easily distract
the driver when he or she attempts to change a song and inevitably receives a
text and a Twitter update and soon finds him or herself swerving to avoid the
shoulder. Completing homework and household chores well and in a timely fashion
likewise becomes an issue at the hands of an iPhone’s distractions. A 2010 Stanford University survey showed that
a majority of young adults on the Stanford campus were in some way addicted to
their iPhones, and many young adults elsewhere are likewise also addicted.
Willpower can only stand for so long in the face of iPhones; even the most
valiant attempts to avoid checking phones for updates or viewing texts that one
heard buzz on the charger fall to the addicting thrill of constant connection. Even
while writing this essay the distractions of the iPhone proved too powerful to
resist. Something drastic may happen when one does not check his or her phone. The
idea that one’s friend may have a pressing question about homework or one may
miss some interesting drama or a call from a friend out of town further fuels
the addiction. This dangerous digression could lead to complete societal
isolation. Gone is the concept of uni-tasking or focusing on doing one task
well; society replaced it with multitasking to make one a more efficient
person. However, in reality, iPhones have made individuals less efficient and
less proficient in the tasks at hand. Homework takes longer and longer to do,
chores pile up, drivers honk their horns and the iPhone buzzes on.
Arguably some critics
would claim that iPhones have improved social skills and social connectivity. The
smartphones offer an ability to connect with others outside of schools, cities,
states, countries, continents even. This universal connection has provided a
wider audience for authors of blogging sites such as Tumblr or MySpace, letting
their words and thoughts have a much larger impact and influence on others.
People who meet by chance in an airport or at a Science Convention can connect
and become friends through instant messaging or inbox and this may provide
opportunities for close friendships that could have never been possible without
technology like iPhones. Various apps such as Pinterest and Instagram allow one
to share photos or inspiration or hobbies with others and allow a deeper view
into that individual’s persona. Opportunities to compete in games with one’s
friends via the various gaming apps allow individuals to interact with those
whom they may not live near enough to compete with in sports or pickup games.
IPhones have brought so much more connectivity to modern society that life
without seems lackluster and isolated. Au contraire, the devices have brought dis-connectivity and
formed a modern society unable to relinquish the phones’ holds on every action.
The constant stream
of media available through iPhones harms individuals’ thoughts, obstructs creativity,
isolates families, damages the depth of friendships and distracts from the
present tasks. What is the error in disconnection? What is so wrong in being
alone, without distraction, with your individual thoughts, feelings, and the
atmosphere of the present? Youth in today’s society has lost touch of that
aspect of reality. Ray Bradbury’s predictions of the future in the 1900s
startled readers who felt that his horrific expostulations were both insane and
improbable. Flash forward sixty years and take a look around a public location.
What do you see? You may notice an almost uniform focus on small, shiny,
rectangular devices with glowing screens and scrolling pages, commanding the
users’ attention unceasingly. Just as in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in which the people were consumed by the Seashell
radios, today’s society has become obsessed with the iPhone. Depression rates skyrocket, social skills
plummet, yet more iPhones are purchased per day than births in America. Not a
moment passes by that a teen in America wants to miss and iPhones do not permit
any grievous slip up in that area. There is something to be said for
connectivity, as all things, in moderation, but iPhone use has surpassed
extreme and borders on user enslavement to the technologies and wireless world. Breakage of these bonds takes time and effort
on individuals’ part but change must occur to prevent the decline of the
current generations. Leaving iPhones in your car or purse on silent during a
social event and checking it only in the case of an emergency would make a
start on improving social skills. Leaving it plugged in or near a communal
docking station when you returns home would help improve familial interactions
and relationships. Gentle reminders for friends to neglect checking their
phones when together or when driving would help as well. This effort must start
somewhere, sometime; why not here, why not now? The reign of iPhones must come
to an end.
