Calling all Brains! by Prince Miller

Although cellular phones have been around for a little over forty years, “smart” phones have only been around for about ten. These advanced cell phones have increased capabilities and functionality when compared to their original counterparts, which could only perform basic functions, such as calling and later, texting (mobile phones have been around since 1983, but text messaging launched in the United States in 1995). Over this past decade, as the capability and functionality of these devices has increase, so has human dependency upon them in day-to-day life. Cell phone users today depend on their phones for Internet connection, communication, current events, or whatever else they have personalized their device to do for themselves. This increased dependency comes with a growing detachment from society, because many people today are so addicted to the use of their cell phone that they spend most of their time looking at their phones or listening to music on their phones when out in public instead of socializing. As Nicholas Carr tells us in “The Shallows”, these innovations can be “anti-intellectual” , because we no longer need to make a point of learning information, we can often search for it on the web in less than a minute on these devices whenever we need the information. People born in the “age of technology” may not see these changes in human nature as distinctly as those born a few generations earlier do, because the older people have a better understanding of life before the smart phone. In the following, I will explain why smart phones, while being universally useful and helpful in navigating today’s life, are having a negative effect on the human brain.
One major concern about modern cell phones, or smart phones is that their extensive functionality serves to distract users from the world around them. Before this age of smart phones, if you wanted to look at yourself, you had to go to a mirror. If you wanted to play video games, you had to buy a video game console, or go to an arcade. If you wanted to do research for an essay, you had to go to a library or actively find research materials. However, all in the past ten years, all of these capabilities have become built into a slab of plastic, glass, and metal that conveniently fits in the palm of your hand. Smart phones today are capable of almost an uncountable number of functions. For example, they can operate interchangeably as calculators, cameras, notepads, maps, newspapers, flashlights, and music players, to name a few. The combined cost of these things is more than that of a cell phone, which only serves to intensify the human addiction to them. In a personal interview with my forty-three year old uncle, Shaun Richards, he told me that he believes phones are “addictive and distractive, and are possibly destroying basic human functions and social interaction” (Richards par. 5). He believes that the common person does not need a cell phone, and that only those who have large businesses to manage or oversee do. He says this because the average person is too likely to get caught up in the usefulness of his phone, and be less productive. Also, byproducts of increased human cell phone usage, such as bank tellers, phone operators, toll booth workers, and other jobs being replaced by technology makes it harder for people to survive, which has a clear negative effect. When I interviewed my twenty-one year old brother, Darkim Miller, he told me that he feels cell phones have a profoundly negative effect on a person’s attention span, because of the “social footprint” people are desperate to leave nowadays (Miller par. 3). In his day-to-day life, he says, “it’s like most people are spending their actual life just waiting for their next notification, instead of living their real lives” (Miller par. 5). This, he feels, causes a rift between people on a daily basis that was not previously there. Nowadays there is much less of a window for basic interaction, because people may be tuning out the outside world entirely while intently engaging the device in their hands. Because of this, he feels people are becoming less empathetic towards one another and are losing the ability to communicate with people outside of the Internet.
Ironically, although cell phones were invented to augment our ability to communicate with one another, they can be a constant interruption in face to face communication. People today are likely to check their messages, watch a funny video, or take a call in the middle of a conversation, which can leave a bad impression on the person speaking to them and give both people a warped perception of one another. In an experiment conducted by students at the Public Library of Science, the conclusion was drawn that “One consequence of inattention and distraction during human communication is the disruption of ostension. Ostensive signals, which include among others directing gaze, raising the eye-brows and changing the tone of voice, constitute a natural protocol to convey pertinence in human communication” (Lopez-Rosenfield 6). In this experiment, which involved a large audience of people being put into one on one conversation scenarios, they were able to deduct that not giving someone your full attention while they are speaking to you may hinder your ability to understand them, because you may miss minor details about the subject or the body language the speaker is trying to convey, which can have major effects on what you find important in the story and shape the way you view what they said. The speaker, on the other hand, may feel less inclined to give these ostensive signals to the listener, which may diminish their overall attitude toward speaking at all, leaving them dissatisfied with the conversation and perhaps even the listener themselves.
These changes to our interactions and social patterns brought about by smart phones have also begun to affect the way humans think and memorize things. Being able to find information at the press of a button, or being able to pay for things with your cell phone, or keeping up with all your favorite celebrities’ lives by following their social media profile has made a lot of people today very short term thinkers. There is not much need to bother remembering things when most of the useful information is already on an outsourced memory. As Nicholas Carr tells us, “The Web provides a convenient and compelling supplement to personal memory, but when we start using the Web as a substitute for personal memory, bypassing the inner processes of consolidation, we risk emptying our minds of their riches” (Carr 192). Despite this statement having been written five years ago, it applies equally, if not more (due to further smart phone advancements), to the current day. holds prevalent to this day. Many people, students especially, use their smart phones to take their notes, record important dates, and even quick search information to do their assignments – all in lieu of actually memorizing and utilizing information like students were forced to before these devices came about. The human brain is adaptive by nature, and the patterns developed by getting this quick information can shape the brain to only accept information in this same fast paced rushed through fashion, which could in turn make something that requires long periods of time and focus, such as reading a book or paying attention in a class, become a challenge for people who are attuned to smart phone usage. This diminishing attention span, in addition to the heightened addiction and dependency upon the phones themselves caused by it, is a vicious cycle that is detrimental to the human brain and its functions.
While these small changes to human interaction might be overlooked or dismissed, everyone experiences them in different ways on a daily basis. Many people have a need for these devices, and perhaps are simply willing to accept the social changes that come along with them. In an article posted by The Himalayan Times, it is stated that cell phones have various uses, and therefore should be available to students, especially in college, because of their usefulness as research tools (The Himalayan Times par 5). In time, we may develop a new society or at least an education system that has adapted to the smart phone method of thinking and memorizing, but humanity has not yet had time to adapt, due to the fact that cell phones have existed a relatively short time.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing To Our Brains. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.

Lopez-Rosenfeld, Matías, Cecilia I. Calero, Slezak Diego Fernandez, Gerry Garbulsky, Mariano Bergman, Marcos Trevisan, and Mariano Sigman.”Neglect in Human Communication: Quantifying the Cost of Cell-Phone Interruptions in Face to Face Dialogues.” PLoS ONE. 10.6 (June 2015): 1-9. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Nov 2015.

Miller, Darkim. Personal interview. 29 Nov 2015.

“Pros and Cons of Cell Phones.” The Himalayan Times. 25 February 2015. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 18 Nov 2015.
Richards, Shaun. Personal interview. 29 Nov 2015.

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