The fact that people are getting addicted to in-hand devices is not novel. Day in and day out, life comes to a standstill without having the gadgets at disposal. With the gadgets comes Internet, and with Internet, comes Google. Kaspersky’s recent study has revealed some utterly shocking facts as to how people are dependent on smartphones.
The company conducted the research on 1,007 adult smartphone users in India and found that seven out of 10 people could recall their spouse’s phone numbers without checking their phones. However, only two out of 10 could recall their child’s school’s contact number. It also revealed that young users are more dependent on devices. The research further pointed out that the dependency would grow severe over the time.
Some of the questions asked in the survey were – “ Do you remember the phone number for the house you lived in when aged 10?” or “If you want to find the answer to a question, what is the first thing you would do?”.
Surprisingly, about 1 in 3 could not recall the number at all, or remembered only partially.
For second question too, about one-thirds said they go online,
This dependency is very usual when we just take time out and look around, or even at ourselves. Take for an instance of one little stumble in life, or one little query coming up in your head you cannot resist finding an answer for- your hand immediately reaches out for your cellphone to ask Google for an answer.
And it doesn’t just stop there, after Google, there is always another finger waiting to tap the Facebook icon, followed by maybe scrolling through Instagram or taking a quick look at the Twitter feed. So there is a chain- a chain, which keeps you mingling in the virtual circle and not the physical one. Even intimate relationships sour in the process. We recently spoke of how Indians prefer smartphones over sex .
The harm in the process is that around half of the people started believing Internet as an extension of their brain. People do not want to remember facts and figures anymore; they remember the names of search engines or sites that could provide them with the needed data.
Altaf Halde, managing director – South Asia of Kaspersky Lab said, “Digital amnesia should not be taken lightly. Yes, a smartphone has become almost a necessity for anyone who lives in today’s society and it’s an essential professional and personal tool for communication. However, it is very important to limit ones dependency on it primarily because of its addictive properties. The mind is a muscle and it if it’s not used for the reasons it was made, it will become lazy.”
The researchers at Kaspersky have a solution to the problem. They suggest that users should stay away from phones and apps for at least a week to tune back the body with the frequencies of nature.
Though Google has changed the way we look at information and process it, for every ‘how to’ we turn it on to read something, or more simply watch a YouTube video. People want quick answers and solutions to everything that comes to mind, going digital in this quest is killing logical reasoning by the brain.
The problem is, we’ve transferred most of our brain’s responsibilities over to our phones and that’s surely something to worry about. However, there are some, who feel Smartphone addiction is alright… What do you think?