Introduction:
We live in a world with 7 billion people, out of which 6 billion own cellphones and spend a large chunk of their day invested in it. Around 95% of Americans today own cellphones and 77% own smartphones which has doubled since a Pew study conducted in 2011. At this point, cellphones have gone from being special commodities to necessities and with the constant development of these phones and their services, it’s hard to turn a blind eye and stay away from it all.
In this paper, I’ve decided to show the affects that a cellphone has on an average human being, biologically and socially.
Biological Effects:
Posture:
When you look down at your phone, your neck is angled in a way that battles almost 60 pounds of pressure as opposed to the usual 12 pounds that you’d normally experience while keeping your head up straight and this leads to a 60 degree neck tilt. When you consider the fact that an average human being spends around 4.7 hours per day on their phone, this neck condition starts seeming more concerning. This degenerative neck condition caused by cellphones is colloquially referred to as “text neck” and long-term damage.
Eyesight:
Scientists at the University of Toledo discovered how blue light emitted from our cellphones damages our retina and has potential to lead to macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of vision loss in the United States.
This light has even lead to the increase of Myopia worldwide.
Scientists, who have studied the impact of electromagnetic waves on human eye, say that cell phone usage can also lead to early cataract in lens beyond affecting retina, cornea and other ocular systems of the eye.
The main problem focussed on by most scientists wasn’t the fact that the eyes were absorbing the energy but the fact that the heat it absorbed wasn’t getting transmitted out of the body, thereby affecting the eye while absorbing it.
Brain:
The waves produced by cellphones is even proved to alter brain activity and patterns. For instance, Alpha rhythms are associated with your mind wandering off while Gamma rhythms are linked with conscious attentiveness. A 2015 French study showed that when a phone vibrates, alpha rhythms are boosted which quite literally alters your brain function. The causes increase in distractive thoughts and wandering of the mind.
The screen’s light is also said to alter our circadian rhythm which reduces our time spent in deep sleep which is thereby related to development of diabetes, cancer and obesity. This is why people on their phones at night have a harder time falling asleep and produce less melatonin, hormone responsible for regulation of sleep-wake cycles.
The World Health Organization states cell phone radiation as a “possible human carcinogen” due to an increased risk of brain cancer from long-term and heavy use of cell phones.
A Netherlands mobile phone study found that when a dialing mobile phone is placed on the ear, its radiation changes brain activity (i.e. cortical reactivity increases).
A 2011 U.S study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated that 50 minutes of cell phone use changed human brain glucose metabolism in the region of brain closest to the phone antenna and a 2006 Finland study showed that mobile phone radiation induced changes in cerebral blood flow in humans and that brain tissue damage could be caused by radiation from mobile phones.
Medical literature also suggested that the electromagnetic radiation of smartphones may affect biological systems and change the antioxidant defense systems of human tissues, leading to oxidative stress.
Social Effects:
Fears:
Cellphones have become a crucial part of our everyday lives and having it go on low battery is almost like living on the edge. In a world like this, we need to wonder if our dependency on cellphones is even healthy. 93% of people between the ages of 18 & 29 report using phones as a tool to avoid boredom as opposed to other alternatives such as engaging with people.
According to a 2007 Thomée study, compulsive usage leads to mental health symptoms such as sleep disturbance, depression and heightened psychological distress.
This led to the rise of a fear termed “nomophobia”. It’s defined as an irrational fear of being without your phone or not being able to use it for whatever reason.
Another syndrome that rose from the popularity of cellphones is “phantom vibration syndrome”. This is when you feel your phone’s vibrations even in the absence of notifications. 89% of test subjects from Indiana University confirmed to have felt these phantom vibrations at least once every 2 weeks.
Lately, our brains even perceive an itch as an actual vibration from the phone because technology has started to re-wire our nervous system and this leads to the brain getting triggered in ways it never has before.
Addictive Behavior:
Cellphones that we used nowadays have changed drastically from what they started off as. Smartphones cross boundaries and have the use of a cellphone go way beyond just communication through calls and texts so with development like that, something must be bargained. In this case, the bargained items include time, attention and mental capacity. 5-10% of internet users are unable to log off their smartphones and divert their attention. Brain scans of such users actually show similarities between them and substance addicts.
Applications like social media apps and gaming apps reward you using “likes” and points which lead to the release of dopamine in our brains which is the feel-good chemical. When you play a game, it helps you gain rewards for small goals and this induced dopamine release causes a “compulsion loop”. This is the same loop involved with nicotine and cocaine users.
Our brains are wired to be novelty seeking so when applications constantly come out with new things for us to try and witness, we get stuck in this endless loop hopelessly. Usually, our brains search for “stopping cues” to end a certain activity and diver attention but applications prevent the usage of stopping cues to increase the popularity and profitability of their products. This is why most of social media is bottomless so you are made to feel like there’s constantly new content to look into, thereby increasing the time you spend on each application.
Using MRI scans, scientists found that rewards centers and far more active while talking about one’s own experiences as opposed to someone else’s and while 30-40% of face-to-face conversations involve individual experiences, 80% of online communication is more self-centered. This is what connects people more to self-absorbed activities.
Community:
We’ve all heard of ways in which phones help us achieve multiple tasks at once and engage in global relations but we need to start addressing facts and downsides. While people believe that users of multiple apps that manage it all are good at multi-tasking, studies show that multi-tasking online reduces one’s ability to filter out interferences and can even make it harder to commit information to memory.
Research shows that cellphones are eroding one’s ability to communicate face-to-face and while it might give us time-saving alternatives to communication, it takes away the confidence and approachability of a person. Eighty-nine percent of Americans say that during their social interactions, they took out a phone, and 82 percent said that it affected the conversation they were in. This is us intentionally making decisions that harm relationships all around us.
We’ve gotten to a point where everything happens virtually: shopping, dating, banking, etc. In this situation, generations that are brought into this society lose the sense and meaning behind human touch and comfort. Everything becomes so dependent on cellphones that future generations are born addicted.
On average, children are 12 years old when they receive their first phone but 69% of families with children under the age of 8 have and let the children use smartphones. 33 percent of teenagers, ages 13 to 17, list texting as their favorite form of communicating with their friends and 53% of them say that their phone calls last for a maximum of 4 minutes. If this trend keeps continuing, actual human connections will cease to exist.
According to the National Safety Council, in 2013, 1.2 million car crashes involved drivers talking on the phone, and 341,000 involved text messaging. Cell phone use behind the wheel reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent and in 2015, 42 percent of high school students who drive reported sending a text or email while driving.