Hold the Phone
Smartphone dependence is changing our day-to-day lives, health and relationships with others — but it’s going to be OK.
Story by Olivia Klein | Photos by Christa Yaranon
Every morning, I wake up to the sound of my iPhone alarm. After the tenth refrain, I turn over to press the silent button and, with my phone now in hand, look to see what I’ve missed in my 8-hour hiatus from the world. Then, I play a podcast on my phone to help me wake up and stretch my arms while I check my emails and text messages.
For the remainder of the day, I’m plugged in, setting my phone down for the last time only seconds before I close my eyes at night.
As of June 2019, 81% of Americans own a smartphone. Looking around at commuters on the bus, people working out at the gym and even students in their classrooms, it’s easy to feel out of place if your eyes are on anything besides a phone screen.
As a member of Generation Z, my transition to adulthood was aligned with an international move to smartphone dependence. I still remember the day my parents came home with their first iPhones, saving up money to buy my first iPod Touch and reading books on an e-reader during my bus commute to middle school.
But unlike future generations, I remember a time before I was addicted to my smartphone.
Even my sister, who’s only two years younger, received her first iPhone in middle school. As a result, she’s grown up with a very different relationship to her phone than I have.
Smartphones provide many useful conveniences, from instant communication to the answers to most questions, at our fingertips. But in some ways, having a phone can also foster a feeling of constant underlying anxiety.
It’s my watch, my computer, my map, my means of communication with family and friends. It’s also one of the most expensive things I own, so the idea of misplacing it is nerve-racking, to say the least.
Throughout the day I constantly reach for my back pocket to make sure my phone is there and when it isn’t, or I realize I’ve forgotten it somewhere, I panic.
Although I’ve deleted social media apps and tried to moderate my usage, I still find myself down a rabbit hole on YouTube late at night wondering where the time has gone.
Unhappy with my daily phone usage habits, I decided it was time for a change. Armed with a billion questions, I reached out to the director of Western Washington University’s neurobiology program, Dr. Kelly Jantzen, in order to learn more about the issue and how to address it.
“Addiction, by definition, is an activity you engage in that you would pursue to the detriment of other activities,” Jantzen said. “So, cell phone addiction would be that you seek the use of your cell phone even though it’s harmful to your health or lifestyle.”
Jantzen describes that the various forms of addiction are created and maintained differently, such as drug or alcohol abuse versus gambling. However, they are all linked by an underlying basis of reward pathways triggered in the brain.
Over the course of one week, I challenged myself to treat my phone as if it were a landline. This meant leaving it in my bedroom at all times and using it only for the call and text functions that phones were originally built to fulfill. I also took notes of my daily experiences to document the challenges I faced.
The first day of my experiment was the Tuesday after a three-day weekend. Filled with a newfound sense of purpose, I left my phone in my room and went to campus for the day.
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The day didn’t go quite as planned. The first issue was missing somewhat ambiguous plans to meet up and do homework with a friend in the library. And then there was getting downtown to meet a friend for dinner. I waited at the bus stop for ages, and when the second scheduled bus didn’t come, I embarked on the 20-minute walk home in the pitch black without my phone.
Despite being mildly discouraged from these moments, I have to admit that everything ended up working out. If I had just planned more in advance it would have been considerably less stressful.
[embed]https://soundcloud.com/user-426137420/day-5saturday/s-DyS95[/embed]
The next day went much more smoothly. Even though I normally listen to music on my morning run, I didn’t really mind absorbing the natural sounds of the arboretum for a change. Because I was busy in class for most of the day, I only reached for my phone seven times and did not miss any plans due to a lack of communication.
During the week I noticed I had far more spontaneous interactions and conversations with friends. Perhaps because I wasn’t walking through campus with my face glued to my phone, I ran into multiple friends I didn’t normally see around.
Each day, I became increasingly accustomed to leaving my phone at home. I went from reaching for my phone 12 times a day, to not at all on Saturday.
During the week I noticed I had far more spontaneous interactions and conversations with friends.
There were definitely a few hiccups and a missed phone call from a friend that delayed plans. There were also times when I might’ve liked to check-in with my boyfriend over text, but I was largely able to follow-up and make amends.
[embed]https://soundcloud.com/user-426137420/day-7monday/s-i23bg[/embed]
It was more doable than I had imagined and was, admittedly, a critical wake-up call for me to recognize that, albeit difficult at times, it’s possible for me to live without my phone.
Although the first iPhone was released 13 years ago, in 2007, there is already an extensive body of research on the topic of smartphone addiction. The symptoms most commonly described can be divvied into three different areas of health: social, psychological and physical.
Research shows that smartphone usage, specifically related to social media, decreases a user’s motivation to be open and to interact with others, shares a correlation with mental health issues like depression and anxiety and decreases the amount and quality of sleep that users have.
So how are members of Generation Z and those that follow expected to find moderation and avoid the negative effects posed by smartphone addiction?
Although Jantzen is a smartphone user himself, he remains concerned about the addictive behavior he sees in himself and others.
“If smartphones were to really make us shallow thinkers…that would be my fear,” Jantzen said.
Jantzen tries to focus on making positive use of his time, using his phone as a tool with functions like Google Maps. He also believes there is a place and time for moderation. For instance, at home, his family enforces rules of no phones in bedrooms, letting them all charge in the living room at night, as well as leaving phones behind on family vacations.
Jantzen clarified that moderation of smartphone usage can look differently for everyone. One of his students mentioned an exercise in which their family or friends all put their phones in the middle of a table when out for dinner and the first person to grab their phone has to cover everyone’s meal.
For others, moderation can mean a much more significant life change.
“I think you can use it for really wonderful, brilliant things and people can use it for lazy, horrible things. And people will do both, which is ultimately the truth of all technology.”
Cameron Eckardt was born in 1997, and as such, is at the cusp of Gen Z. Unlike the large majority of this age group, he made the decision to trade in his iPhone for a flip phone.
“I don’t miss it,” Eckardt said. “I’m not of the mindset that we should get rid of all smartphones [because] they definitely serve a purpose. But people lived without these for hundreds of years.”
Even so, Eckardt has an open mind about eventually upgrading back to a smartphone. Although he currently doesn’t need one for his job, he thinks it’s very doable to get rid of the gadget entirely.
As I went through the research and reporting for this piece, I affirmed my belief that smartphone usage has negative impacts on users in multiple areas of health. But I’ve also seen how useful having a smartphone can be when it comes to maintaining healthy friendships or feeling safe on unexpected walks home at night. These tools have been developed to help us connect with each other and the world around us, and they work really well.
Although Jantzen is nervous about the implications that smartphones pose, he also acknowledges that there are positives to be brought by this technology.
“I think you can use it for really wonderful, brilliant things and people can use it for lazy, horrible things,” Jantzen said. “And people will do both, which is ultimately the truth of all technology.”
The reality is that smartphones are now expected of our generation in many important areas like schoolwork and jobs. As a creature of connection, I don’t want to be left behind or miss opportunities due to my own stubbornness.
Although taking a week away from my phone was impractical, and I’m not sure I would recommend such an extreme measure to a friend, tonight I think I’ll practice leaving my phone in another room.
I might curl up under my covers with a book before I fall asleep, knowing that I could wake up to the sunlight coming through my window instead of the LED light of my phone screen.