Put the iPhone Down |
Posted: March 23, 2018 |
I recently received an iPod touch as a free gift with the purchase of a new computer. Despite the fact that it’s not even a smartphone, I find myself using it constantly; I feel strangely naked when I don’t take it out with me. When I take it out, I compulsively check for open wireless; when I find it, I check my email and message boards through which I get work information, and when I can’t find any, I play games (usually Enviro-Bear or So Long, Oregon!) even in the company of others. This is bad. I’m fairly certain that my addiction to my iPod touch is built around a few components. The first is my love of discovering things, like open wireless networks, and making a game out of finding free internet when I’m traveling (or just outside of my house). I love taking screenshots of networks with interesting or funny names and building mental maps of where service does and doesn’t exist. The second is my compulsive desire to check my email, though I receive at most a few messages every day and maybe one of them is of any importance. When I can’t get online, I now find myself checking my email using my phone every few hours, something I used to be able to forego without any trouble at all. Having an iPod touch at my disposal has reconfigured my brain to always want to be connected in a way that it never was before. The third is my misguided internal belief that I’m more in touch with things than I actually am. The iPod touch is easy access to messaging, social networking services, magazines I read, publications I write for, and other things that I use regularly when I’m on a computer, alone, doing work or reading for my own interest. However, with a portable device, I now find myself behaving in the same way I behave alone when I’m out with others. Instead of being sociable or trying to steer conversation in a way that interested me, I recently spent a night out reading news aggregators and reviews of records instead of talking to the ten people around me, which obviously made me look like a jerk, cost me the opportunities potentially gained by talking to them, and hurt my chances of being able to have a functional conversation with those people later on in life, as I’ll be thought of as “that guy” who looked at a smartphone all evening. It’s extremely easy to become totally hooked on a piece of technology. It’s predictable, it provides the same feedback every time you use it, and it’s always available to you, unlike actual human interaction, which is unreliable, fickle, and sometimes difficult; it’s always easier to tune into a machine than something alive. And as a consequence, it’s important to make a point of not doing this, especially when you need to make a good impression or convince someone that you’re listening; even if you’re a master multitasker and can hold down a conversation effortlessly while composing an email and eating lunch, there’s a good chance that someone is going to read you as rude and apathetic even if you’re not, compromising both your reputation and tainting that personal interaction. About Author Alex Wise is blog contributor and dating consultant of Loveawake.com - the fast-growing online dating site. The site uses your responses to pair you with compatible dates across African continent in countries like South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and etc, promising a high accuracy rate as long as you know what you want and are honest about it. Follow Alex on the company site or on Facebook and Twitter
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