What will we look back on and regret?
30 years from now, or less, we’ll be hearing about studies from researchers that proclaim that smartphone usage has far more widespread deleterious effects than we could’ve ever anticipated. Our minds are scattered, our bodies and eyes ache from worshiping that glowing, blue light for far too many hours, and our souls are waning from a lack of creativity and peaceful solitude. A common question I ask myself is: what is the cigarette of today’s age? Smartphone usage is one, which essentially goes hand in hand with social media/internet addiction. So, why do we sorely lack the foresight of being able to recognize these extreme societal challenges as they stare us directly in the face?
Just as in the age of cigarettes, common sense tells us that something is indeed amiss. It’s not hard to guess that physically inhaling a substance through smoke is not bound to bring great effects on your health, but between the millions of dollars in marketing, doctors’ recommendations, and just plain peer pressure, the notion that “it can’t be that bad” was pervasive. If everyone is doing it, everyone can’t be wrong, right? Not exactly. Much like the tobacco industry, there are endless budgets to propagate smartphone and internet usage on the whole. Endless fascinating and fun gadgets and accessories to customize your usage of these things…