According to Heather Wilhelm, NationalReview.com, our addiction to our smartphones is “damaging American mental health.” Today’s phones are so powerful, fast, and filled with dazzling images and alluring tidbits of information from social media and the internet that they are virtually impossible to resist. She said, “Who among us hasn’t looked up at least once, smartphone in hand, slightly dazed, only to discover that precious bundles of minutes or hours have somehow slithered by, lost to all eternity usually in exchange for no discernible enlightenment at all?”
The average smartphone user checks in about 80 times a day; click on one Facebook or Instagram feed or web link, and down you go into the digital rabbit hole. Americans now “eat, sleep, and breathe media,” consuming some form of it 12 hours a day. Not surprisingly, scientific research has linked smartphone use to decreased concentration, lower problem-solving skills, and depression. For youngsters, smartphone addiction is truly disastrous, with the incidence of depressive episodes souring to 60 percent. Why give kids under 12 what for them is “a very expensive portable internet porn finder/social-media stalking system/mean girls text center”? Adults should limit their kids’ smartphone minutes—and their own. Our collective mental health may depend on it.
The Week, October 27, 2017