Observations

One of the most common places I see the affects of smartphone addiction is on the RTD Light-Rail. I find it very upsetting that smartphones have become such an integral part of our lives; we aren't even willing to interact with other humans anymore. If a person prioritizes people that are not even physically in their vicinity, this person has an addiction. If someone is unable to focus enough to learn in school because what's going on on the internet is more important, they have an addiction. If anything significantly interferes with one's life, it is making them an addict. Smartphones are making the world addicted. This seems to be an increasingly troublesome reality. Simon Sinek talks about this in an episode of Inside Quest:

In this video, Sinek talks about the millennial generation in the workplace. However, his observations apply to all people of all ages.

Smartphones are an important aspect of worldwide visual culture. Investigating the visual aspects of smartphone use can begin to explain why smartphone addiction is so prevalent and so severe. From a design standpoint, smartphones are slim, sleek, and appealing to hold in the hand. Owning an attractive and powerful device is a pleasant feeling, that is until it goes out of style. Having a slim, big-screen, bezel-less smartphone is a symbol of status and modernity in 2019. Smartphone companies are quickly adapting this design trend and are dropping support for devices with big bezels and out-of-date specs/design. The way a phone looks today is just as important as how it performs.

Applications and the modern smartphone user-interface is also attractive and addictive. Social media companies design their websites in a way that strips users of their "time and conscious attention." (Oremus, 2017) Those who design social media websites consider the colors and sounds the user experiences when using their products. Usually these colors and and sounds are ones that are more likely to give the user a "hit of dopamine" (Oremus, 2017) every time they interact with elements on the website/application. For example, the act of scrolling through a stream of Facebook posts is addicting because it is endless. A user might scroll down on a Facebook page and see nothing of interest, just as a gambler doesn't earn money every time they pull the lever on a slot machine. However, what drives users to keep scrolling is the possibility that this action will eventually yield a compelling result. A person will scroll past cat photos, articles, and memes until they see that their friends were having a party without them or that their significant other updated their profile picture. These visual tactics are not only designed to get users hooked, but also to retrieve as much information as possible from said users. User activity, in turn, establishes consumer cultures and builds upon the platform companies already have to influence our lives. This circumstance is explored further on the "Branding and Control" page.

History of Smartphones

The first commercially available smartphone was developed by IBM in 1992. It was released in 1994 as the "Simon Personal Communicator."This device ran applications that are not unlike the apps on modern smartphones: email, address book, calendar, news, etc. It foreshadowed the beginning of a mobile technological revolution.

Throughout the 1990s, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) were common, high-tech (for the time) computing devices that were on consumer shelves. The 2000s were a time when these computing devices had slimmer designs and more features. These were called "feature phones." They were equipped with "QWERTY" keyboards.

In 2007, Apple Inc. released the first generation iPhone, and it revolutionized the world of mobile computing. The device was multi-touch (allowing for zooming to be activated by pinch-gestures). Other touch-screen smartphones during the time needed a stylus in order to operate, and the touch screen was not the primary source of input on these phones. All computing operations were activated entirely with the touchscreen with the exception of power, home, and volume buttons. Never before did a smartphone have as much power as this one. This phone could render desktop-quality webpages and videos, which was a first for mobile devices. This innovation has come with a major cost. Other devices inspired by the iPhone (like Android phones, and later iPhone models) are the cause for a widespread health crisis in the world. No one wants to stop using these phones. (Wikipedia, 2019)

"Stare Into the Lights My Pretties"

This film encapsulates what this blog is about. I discovered the extent of the smartphone addiction phenomenon by watching this documentary.