Don’t let technology control you
In recent years, phone addiction has become more and more of a problem.
November 14, 2018
Eyes were once known as the window to your soul, but now it is your cell phone. Technology has become inescapable. We succumb every night to staring at computer screens and spend much of the day looking at our phones. My computer lives by my side and my phone in my hand. Parents struggle with teens who incessantly check their devices, but observing the typical adult suggests hypocrisy.
Although I don’t want to be so connected to my devices, it is difficult to avoid it. We live in an age when your computer is necessary for homework every night, relationships begin over social media, and you need your phone for communication as face-to-face interactions occur less everyday. Technology has become our lives, or at least controls a great majority of it.
According to Human Rights Watch, even the Supreme Court has decided that your cell phone is an extension of your person in Carpenter v. United States. Chief Justice Roberts stated that they are “an important feature of human anatomy.” The decision stated that the police need a warrant to search your phone as it has become an integral part of everyone’s lives.
The addictive quality comes from the fact that the notifications are spaced out randomly. Your brain becomes addicted to the uncertainty.
However, don’t let technology control you. Allow yourself to get bored in line for coffee, listening to the conversation going on in front of you instead of refreshing Instagram. Refrain from Snapchatting your friends while they are sitting right next to you on Friday night.
Do your homework on a piece of paper one night instead of filing it away on Google Drive. Leave your phone at home one afternoon and remember what it is like to listen to the songs on the radio instead of your pre-combed playlists.
