SNN July 2018

EDITORIAL
GET BACK TO THE REAL WORLD
Let’s get this one out of the way. Put your iPhone down and go and talk to
a real person. I don’t mean to be rude but we need to talk about this.
The addiction to smartphones – and the advent of social media – are
a defining and all-consuming phenomena of our generation. This is not
something we should be proud of. We are better connected than at any
point in the history of the world, but we aren’t really talking or listening to
one another.
I remember the first day I got an iPhone through work. I thought it was
awesome. Look at all of the things that I can do on my iPhone at any
time of the day. I was up-to-date with my favourite sports teams with
notifications as soon as they had won or lost. I could order Burger Fuel
one minute and the next buy the latest pair of Nike sneakers. Awesome.
Work owned the phone and it didn’t take long for me to realise that
they now owned me. At all times. No longer could I pack up my work
on a Friday evening after a hard week, have a couple of beers with my
work mates and not think about work again until Monday morning.
You can receive emails at any time of the day and – in the busiest and
most stressful times – the ping sound of an email coming in is enough to
ratchet up the stress levels whether it is a conscious or a sub-conscious
thing. So here it is, an iPhone designed to make my life better in every
way, but I can tell you it has made it worse in so many ways. I know I’m
not alone.
Ed Sheeran has figured it out. One of the biggest singer – songwriters
in the world doesn’t own a phone. How great is that? Now, I know that
he lives a very different life to you or me, and probably has a personal
assistant letting him know all of his commitments – but here is a guy who
is living life the old fashioned way. “I’ll meet you at the pub at 8pm?” See it
still works.
Now I understand that the online connection – the only option for some
people – is a real asset for the SCI community. No dispute about that. But
there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction.
There are plenty of stats to back up this unhealthy addiction. A survey
from consulting firm Deloitte showed that 43 percent of consumers
check their smartphones within five minutes of waking up, and 17
percent check them immediately. That is 60 percent of Americans or 196
million people who wake up every day and are ignoring those around
them to go on the worldwide web. How sad.
The Global Mobile Consumer Survey covers almost 50,000 smartphone
users aged 18 to 74 and spanned 31 countries. With nearly 264 million
Americans using their mobile phones 12 billion times per day, in the
aggregate, the mobile ecosystem remains one of the most important
enablers of the way we live and work in 2017.
How many of us have a conversation with the people who matter most
to us while we are thumbing through social media pages or the latest
news. I can feel my wife glaring at me from across the room as I write
this. “Just because you can repeat what I have said, doesn’t mean you
are listening…” she is about to say and she is right. Put the phone down.
Engage.
There are three signs that tell your partner (or anyone) that you are
listening but not really hearing. 1. You immediately go into problem-solving
mode, 2. You’re thinking of other things and 3. You’re planning your
response. Active listening is a sign of respect. It is a sign that you value
your relationship and the conversation you are having above everything
else in that moment.
These points really hit home when your kids pick this up as a learned
behaviour. My two-year-old daughter Charlie is obsessed with my iPhone.
First thing in the morning all she wants to do is be watching Peppa Pig or
The Lion King. She is a very different girl (in a bad way) if we give it to her
because her young brain is not ready and she’s already becoming addicted.
Social media, for all its great qualities of connecting friends and family all
over the world, has a dark side. Facebook and Instagram (and others)
portray a world where everything is perfect – magic sunsets, idyllic
photos and unforgettable moments. It is not real life. It can promote
feelings of real loneliness and isolation. All of us have problems and things
we are dealing with, but they aren’t played out in the social media world.
The addiction of social media is too easy to get hooked on – how many
people liked my post? Before you know it you get together with 10 of
your best mates for brunch and you are all on your phones. What is going
on? It is ruling and ruining our lives.
There is hope. Human behaviour has a history of going in cycles to
find what it has been missing. The same Global Mobile Consumer
Survey showed some encouraging signs in what they are calling “device
etiquette”.
It showed that almost half (47 percent) of U.S. consumers are making
a conscious effort to reduce or limit their smartphone usage, mostly by
keeping it out of sight or turning its functions off.
Overall, the number of times users look at their phones has remained
nearly constant for the past three years at approximately 47 times per
day, the notable exception being the youngest age group (18-24) who
check their phones 86 times a day, up from 82 times in 2016. The rapid
increase in these trends has slowed. And the number of apps consumers
download and have installed on devices, has increased only marginally, to
23, from 22 in 2016.
So what can we do?
“There is hope. Human behaviour has a history of
going in cycles to find what it has been missing.”
Bad habits are easy to form and hard to break, but creating good habits
is not impossible. Maybe it is time we applied some boundaries into how
we use our smartphones.
1. Buy an alarm clock. It will be the best $20 you ever spend. Charge
your phone well away from your bedside table so you are not
woken by notifications or the latest Facebook message (by the same
token do not use your iPhone for music while you are exercising).
2. Have a box away from your living areas that you drop your phone
into when you come home and only pick up if someone calls you.
Responding to every email or post will ruin your life. Strike up a deal
with your partner and keep each other accountable.
3. Spend a weekend without your phone. Live life the old-fashioned
way where you don’t check your emails or respond to requests of
your personal time until you are ready.
4. Connect with real people. Get away from social media and get
down to the local sports club / pub / town centre and interact with
real people. Your friends. The mates you haven’t seen in a while.
Every time you think about going on social media think, when was
the last time I actually talked to my mates – why not try to call
someone different each week just to catch up?
5. Get back to the old school way of doing things. At the risk of
sounding old, dust off some books and get into reading. Put the
kettle on and play a game of cards. Bring out the Scrabble… why
not? The stuff you do when are away on holiday is good fun and
great for winding the mind down - not winding it up by fizzing
through apps on your iPhone.
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