The Unseen Consequences of Our Smartphone Addiction
We check our smartphones an astonishing 81,500 times each year, or once every 4.3 minutes of our waking lives. But what drives this compulsive behavior? Our phones have become the epicenter of our lives, consolidating our calendars, cameras, pictures, work, workouts, reading, writing, credit cards, maps, news, weather, email, and shopping into a single, powerful device.
A Limitless Voyage Inward
With the processing speed of 30,000 times that of the onboard navigational computer that guided Apollo 11 to the moon, our phones take us on a limitless voyage inward, distracting us from the world around us. We habitually grab our phones first thing in the morning, not only to turn off our alarms but also to check email and social media in a half-conscious state of sleep inertia.
A Pattern of Behavior
But we’re not alone in this behavior. A survey of 8,000 Christians revealed that more than half (54%) admitted to checking their smartphones within minutes of waking. When asked whether they were more likely to check email and social media before or after spiritual disciplines on a typical morning, 73% said before. This raises concerns about the impact of our smartphone addiction on our spiritual well-being.
Uncovering the Reasons Behind Our Addiction
So why do we succumb to distractions so easily? There are three main reasons:
- Digital Distractions Keep Work Away: We use digital distractions to escape from vocational pressures, procrastinating around hard tasks and responsibilities.
- Digital Distractions Keep People Away: We use our phones to withdraw from our neighbors and avoid complex situations or boring people.
- Digital Distractions Keep Thoughts of Eternity Away: We find it easy to fall into the trap of digital distractions because they provide a welcome escape from our truest, rawest, and most honest self-perceptions.
The Human Appetite for Distraction
The human appetite for distraction is high in every age, and our phones provide an endless supply of diversions. We use them to numb the sting of emptiness and avoid the silence and solitude that can lead to self-reflection and awareness of our mortality.
The Consequences of Our Addiction
Our smartphone addiction has serious consequences, including:
- Decreased attention span and ability to focus
- Increased stress and anxiety
- Decreased empathy and deepened isolation
- Negative impact on our spiritual well-being
Breaking Free from Our Addiction
To break free from our smartphone addiction, we need to develop healthy habits and strategies for managing our digital lives. This includes setting boundaries, prioritizing face-to-face interactions, and cultivating a deeper sense of self-awareness and spirituality.
A Simple Exercise
Try this simple exercise: set your phone down for a moment, hold out your right hand, palm out and fingers to the sky, and imagine the timeline of history reaching a mile to your left and an eternity to your right. Your time on earth intersects roughly the width of your hand. Let this sink in, and feel the brevity of life. It will make you fully alive.
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