In the past, there was always some kind of intention behind picking up a phone.
Making a call. Receiving a message. Getting an email. Looking something up.
Today, the reason for checking a phone often doesn’t seem obvious.
Unlocking the screen while waiting for your morning coffee. Unlocking the screen upon waking up. Using the device while watching TV, having a conversation, riding an elevator or even walking through a room.
Sometimes people unlock their phone screens and realize that they don’t even remember why they have unlocked them.
Just that small gesture reflects our relationship with smartphones quite a lot.
It’s not so much that smartphones have become more powerful. It’s rather that smartphones have become extremely good at finding ways to encourage users to look at them.
Again and again.
And again.
Phone stopped being a device and became a location
Old mobile phones were meant primarily for communication. But then came the smartphones.
Now, the phone is no longer limited to being just a means of communication. It is a camera, a TV, a newspaper, a map, a music player, an online shop, a bank, a video game console, an office, a calendar, a photo gallery and a place of meeting with friends.
All that is really convenient and useful.
However, it makes our phones so difficult to ignore.
There is always something to look at on the screen.
Someone might have sent you a message. A friend might have shared a post. Something is being delivered right now. There might be a news story, a video, an email or a notification from an app that you haven’t visited for ages.
A phone doesn’t have to grab your attention all the time.
It only has to make you curious enough to find out if there is anything interesting for you behind that screen.
That kind of uncertainty is pretty powerful.
People don’t always check their phones because of actual need
There is one strange thing about the behavior of phone users these days.
Think about what happens when you have to wait in line at a shop.
A few years ago, you might have just observed what’s happening around or waited in silence.
Nowadays, it seems quite natural to reach out for a smartphone.
The same is true of situations when a TV show starts boring you, an elevator ride lasts longer than expected or when the conversation becomes a little dull.
The phone fills the void.
It all might sound harmless at first glance.
What is the problem with checking a couple of messages?
The important question is what happens when people stop feeling that void as a void anymore.
Being in line becomes a situation when something has to be done.
Feeling bored becomes an uncomfortable situation that needs fixing.
Even silence becomes a chance to occupy oneself with something.
Eventually, just a few seconds of inactivity can become uncomfortable.
And this might be a reason why people find it so difficult to simply do nothing sometimes.
Notifications aren’t everything
Notifications often get the blame for the problem of smartphone addiction.
They definitely don’t make anything better.
It’s because of the notification that the phone interrupts the user and signals that something has happened and it should be known.
However, switching off notifications doesn’t automatically solve the problem.
Many people check their smartphones even though they already know that there are no notifications.
This is possible because the habit can become independent of the actual notification.
People might know in advance that there are no messages for them, but still they unlock the phone screen.
It becomes automatic.
This is the same as going to the kitchen and opening the fridge although there are no intentions to take something to eat. This action is triggered by the possibility rather than necessity.
Maybe there is something interesting in there.
The phone gives the user the possibility to find something interesting.
The small rewards ensure the survival of the habit
Checking the phone screen is not always the same. And this is exactly why this behavior is so tempting.
There is sometimes nothing new on the screen. Sometimes there is a funny message from a friend. Sometimes it is an important email. Sometimes there is an interesting article.
Sometimes a video becomes so absorbing that 20 minutes pass by unnoticed.
The unpredictability of the result makes checking phones so attractive.
If each phone check brought absolutely the same results every time, it wouldn’t be so hard to stop.
Instead, there is always a small chance that the next check will bring something really interesting.
And it doesn’t mean that all the applications that run on smartphones are manipulative or that smartphones are bad by nature.
It means that modern technology has learned how to keep people engaged.
The result is a device that provides communication, entertainment, information and social interaction all in one convenient piece.
It’s hard to beat that.
People’s phones also become emotional objects
There is another side to the phenomenon that is not so much related to the technology as to human psychology.
For many people, the smartphone is associated with relationships.
Their family. Friends. Memories. Conversations. Work. All the important parts of their life are in that small glass screen.
This gives the phone an additional emotional value.
If people forget their wallet somewhere, they might feel a little bit annoyed.
If people lose their smartphone, they might feel isolated from their environment.
That’s quite an important difference.
It’s not just a device that they carry. It’s a connection to a lot of things in their life.
Phone is people’s way to escape from an uncomfortable situation
Nowadays, smartphones are used by people to easily escape from uncomfortable situations.
Boredom? Watch something. Feeling lonely? Open the social media network. Stressed? Just scroll. Don’t know something? Look it up. Don’t want to think about what they are doing right now? Find something else to watch.
This behavior can be quite convenient. Sometimes distraction is really what’s needed.
But the problem lies in the fact that this distraction can become people’s automatic response to every uncomfortable feeling.
A few minutes of boredom can be quite useful.
A quiet walk can be beneficial. Thinking about some difficult issue can help sometimes.
But when there is a smartphone to distract from it, people don’t have to do any of that unless they want to.
Is the smartphone causing people to be impatient?
Is it true that smartphones are making people less patient?
It’s hard to say that smartphones alone are the reason.
But smartphones have definitely made immediate satisfaction much easier.
Order food without speaking to anyone. Watch movies whenever people want. Get directions instantly. Contact a person on the opposite side of the country. Look up something instead of memorizing it.
Everything is convenient. But the constant satisfaction of any need is changing people’s expectations.
People used to have patience for waiting. But now waiting seems like an unnecessary trouble.
And this could be the explanation of why people often feel frustrated by ordinary delays that used to be quite normal before.
It’s not that the technology is making people impatient.
It’s rather that it teaches them not to wait.
These are quite different phenomena.
The attention problem is not just about the screen time
The discussion about smartphones usually becomes a discussion about screen time.
How many hours were people using their phone screens today?
This statistic might be helpful. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Spending two hours reading an interesting article is different from spending two hours constantly switching between apps.
Having a conversation with relatives on video for an hour is not quite the same as scrolling mindlessly for an hour.
What might be more important than the screen time is fragmentation.
When the attention is broken dozens of times a day, it becomes difficult to pay uninterrupted attention to something.
People might sit to read something and check their phone after just a few minutes.
Go back to reading. Check a message. Look at the weather forecast. Come back to reading.
Each individual interruption seems not so important. But together they can make any sustained attention much harder.
That’s why just trying to minimize the screen time is not a solution to the problem.
The more appropriate goal is to use a phone more deliberately.
Technology that demands less from us can feel surprisingly good
There is an interesting contradiction here.
Smartphones are becoming extremely sophisticated, yet people start appreciating the simplicity of digital experiences more and more.
The smartphone that doesn’t constantly interrupt people can feel refreshing. An application that does one thing well feels better than an application that has all sorts of features. Having a notification-free period can feel luxurious.
This poses an interesting question about the future of technology.
Perhaps the best technology won’t be the technology that does the most.
Sometimes the best technology will be the technology that quietly does its job and gets out of the way.
This is quite a different concept of innovation.
And this should be kept in mind when thinking about the future of smartphones.
Why are smartphones so difficult to ignore?
There is no single feature of smartphones that makes them so addictive.
It’s the combination of all those features that counts.
People’s phones are useful. They are entertaining. They are social. They are convenient. They are personal. They are always at hand. And they never stop giving something new to look at.
And the most important thing is that people have formed the habit of interacting with their phones.
They reach for them when they are bored. They check them when they are uncertain. They use them when they are uncomfortable. They keep carrying them because their important people can contact them.
After all these years of repeating the actions, reaching for the phone becomes automatic.
That’s why just telling people to “use their phones less” is not quite useful advice.
The problem is not so much in minimizing the screen time.
It’s in understanding the reasons for reaching for the device.
Sometimes it is quite obvious.
Sometimes it is really because people need to check something.
And sometimes it is because people just want to escape from a quiet moment.
Maybe the goal is not to abandon smartphones
Smartphones aren’t disappearing anywhere anytime soon.
For most people, it’s not necessary and even not desirable.
They are extremely useful devices and people couldn’t do a lot of things they do nowadays without them.
A more realistic goal is to keep them just as a tool, not a place to escape into every time one finds an extra second.
It might mean keeping the phone in another room while reading a book. It might mean switching off unnecessary notifications. It might mean walking without a phone once in a while.
Or it might just mean realizing the moment when people unlocked the screen of their phone and asking themselves one useful question:
Why am I picking up my phone?
Sometimes there is an understandable answer.
Sometimes there isn’t.
This small realization may be more important than any screen time statistics.
The technology doesn’t have to disappear from people’s lives in order for them to restore the control over their attention.
They just have to become a little bit more aware of the moments when they decide to use it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I check my phone even when I don’t have notifications?
Phone checking can become a habitual behavior that isn’t dependent on notifications. If the action has been repeated often enough, unlocking the phone screen becomes an automatic response to boredom, uncertainty or inactivity.
Are smartphones bad for our attention?
Smartphones aren’t inherently bad for our attention. How they are used plays a crucial role. Frequent interruptions and constant switching between the apps can make sustained concentration harder, but deliberate use of the phone can provide certain benefits.
Why is it so hard to stop scrolling?
Scrolling provides an endless stream of potentially interesting content. As the next item may prove to be either entertaining or useful, there is always the reason to continue scrolling for a few more seconds.
Does switching off the notifications reduce phone usage?
It might help, especially if the notifications cause frequent interruptions. However, people can continue to use their phones in spite of the lack of notifications due to the developed habit.
Should people stop using smartphones?
Completely abandoning smartphones isn’t reasonable for most people. What they can do instead is to set certain boundaries and become more intentional about the use of the device.
@checane
