So I just saw another one of those videos meant to guilt trip me into “putting down my smart phone.”
And I became thoroughly irritated.
Don’t get me wrong, I really do know what he means. Heck, for a long time I was one of those people who just refused to get a fancy new phone. I wanted to be environmentally conscious. I didn’t want to carry a bunch of blood minerals in my pocket. I didn’t want to have constant crackbook access to distract me from the real world.
However, now that I have FINALLY upgraded to a phone that has a battery life longer than 2 hours, I’ve started to change my tune. In fact, contrary to what that video says, I think my smartphone may be making me into a better person.
Let me give you an example.
I’m an incredibly lazy person. This is unfortunate because I’m also a university student who spends the majority of my time sitting. My body often screams for exercise but I’m all like “body, I walked you yesterday, and I’m kinda-sorta working on my essay while constantly being distracted by the internet.”
Then I got my new phone. It gave me access to a whole new world of things I had never really gotten into because they were too much bother to use on an actual computer. Many of these apps do more than make my life easier, they give me incentive to get off my butt. For example, my phone came with a pedometer app. I can’t really explain it, but this app tapped into my suppressed competitive side and got me taking the long route home just so I could meet my “steps” goal. Then there’ss Instagram. I mean, I still have no idea what I am doing most of the time (tagging people has definitely been hit or miss in my experience), but it makes me want to go on hikes so I can take pictures of pretty stuff.
Basically like this guy
That’s just two examples of how my smartphone has actually provoked me to become more active. And I haven’t even mentioned how often it has saved my marriage (ptl for gps).
Yet somehow, everywhere I look (online) I find new complaints about technology [like that of yours truly -Evan]. Smartphones, first and foremost on the offenders list.
I’m not going to say technology doesn’t open up a new world of problems, because it really can. I won’t even say that it isn’t annoying when the person sitting across from you won’t look up from their phone. For sure, we can all agree that person needs a good smack. But those things are all behaviour problems, not technology problems.
Those strange little boxes we carry around are incredible tools. Heck, sometimes they even save lives. While we are busy posting videos about how terrible our smart phones are, we forget to be thankful for just how amazing they are.
We hold more technology in our jacket pockets than what even existed a few years ago. That is crazy! So let’s stop pretending that our smartphone is a hidden shame we should avoid directly associating with.
Still having trouble learning when to put your phone down?
Don’t worry, there’s an app for that.
