âAs much as I dislike to admit it, my smartphone plays quite a large role in my daily life. Whatever is going on, on my phone, that becomes the priority subconsciously. I feel that I am expected to quickly respond to texts, social media notifications, and phone calls, and as a result, I frequently check my phone to make sure that I am not missing anything or disappointing anyone. Iâll be looking at my phone and think to myself, why am I on it right now?â These are the words of Sarah V., a 20-year-old college undergraduate, who embodies the characteristics of a typical smartphone user on campus. She was responding to my interview question: âCan you describe the degree to which your smartphone plays a role in your life?â In this particular study, I was investigating the relationship between smartphone usage and the psychological traits of narcissism and exhibitionism. What I uncovered was far more peculiar. I found that many smartphone users are critically self-aware of their technological habits, and yet they grapple internally with what can be described as the smartphone paradox: that this mobile device is simultaneously liberating yet controlling, unifying yet polarizing. It is that phrase, âSmartphone Paradox,â that was chosen for the title of this book because it accurately captures how our smartphones function in ways that are incongruous with our beliefs. We perceive our devices to foster communication (when they likely alienate us socially), boost our knowledge (when they likely substitute knowledge for information), and increase our efficiency and productivity (when they likely distract and impede). Sarahâs response to my question, which is representative of so many others, recognizes the many communicative affordances of her smartphone, but she does so with a slight disdain for it. Many of us can relate to her sentiment. Our smartphones enhance us by providing connection to others and access to information, but at the same time, they tether us to unrealistic digital expectations.
We often check our phones unwittingly in hopes of being gratified instead of making deliberate choices to use our smartphones to satisfy a specific need. Researchers often analogize this behavior to that of pulling a lever on a slot machine. To some degree, the dopamine rush that is triggered by checking our smartphones is not unlike that seen in gambling or heavy drug use, where immediate reinforcement perpetuates behavior through a reward-based learning process. In his book, The Craving Mind, Judson Brewer summarizes this habit loop as âTrigger. Behavior. Reward.â1 Our smartphone might trigger us with a notification sound or a vibration, which preempts our behavior to check the phone, and we are subsequently rewarded either positively or negatively, further strengthening this cycle each time. We often turn to our devices for a gratification payoff that augments our indulgences. Henry David Thoreau aptly surmised this paradoxical condition in Walden, first published in 1854: âMen have become tools of their tools.â2 More than 160 years later, there is a cognitive dissonance that persists between us and our mobile devices, in which we possess both an awareness of our smartphone dependence and an inability, or perhaps an unwillingness, to regulate our desire to obtain technological gratifications. Our love affair with smartphones has catapulted us towards a technological crescendoânot unlike Gutenbergâs printing pressâwhere humanity is collectively transformed in both positive and negative ways.
Admittedly, this book presents a highly critical perspective of technology. I recognize that I emphasize the negative consequences of smartphone use and discount its positivity. And perhaps this one-sidedness explains why critics of technology often are dismissed as out-of-touch fogies who are resistant to change. Certainly, for every disruptive technology, there are alarmists. Sometimes, though, these cynics turn out to be right. I believe this to be one of those times. The price tag of digital technology is that it consequently deprives us of important thought processes. Famed media theorist Marshall McLuhan writes about this as being an amputation of technology; while advancements in technology can extend our ability in one sense, it does so by compromising another. In other words, technology giveth and taketh away. This book underscores that which is taketh away.
Readers of this book will have very different relationships with their smartphones, ranging from the indifferent and casual smartphone user to the transfixed and addicted. Although to varying degrees, it is undeniable that the smartphone has had indelible effects on the ways that we act, think, and feel. I suspect that you might already agree with this statement in some capacity, and so in that regard, this book might only reaffirm what you already believe. But if you are skeptical that the smartphone has fundamentally shifted our personal and societal behaviors, I hope that this book will convince you otherwise. In full disclosure, this is not a self-help book. I do offer some actionable solutions for technological rehabilitation, but it is not an exhaustive list. There is a plethora of media (books, websites, videos, podcasts, etc.) aimed at helping you improve your technological self, and you should consult those resources for mindfulness strategies that work best for you. Instead, this book will give a brief history of the smartphone (Chap. 2), deconstruct why we use smartphones in the ways that we do (Chaps. 3 and 4), identify the ruinous effects that occur as a result of our smartphone dependency (Chaps. 5 and 6), and examine the ways in which we are combating invasive technology moving forward (Chaps. 7 and 8).
Writing a book about technology can be dangerously modish. Books are a permanent medium, and technology is fleeting. Like architecture, fashion, and music, technology is always evolving, and so writing about a particular device or technology is ephemeral. (I doubt you would be reading this book if it were titled The Flip-Phone Paradox.) That is why I ask that you read this book through the lens of smartphones but grant that this is a broader metaphorical framework applicable to all personal and mobile technologies, even if they have not yet been conceptualized or developed. This is a book about dependence on and gratification by our digital tools. Smartphones happen to be the vehicle for this book, but as we embark on wearable and implantable technology, screen-free devices, and neuromedia, the thesis remains the same: that which we invest of ourselves in technology is that which is lost.
A Plea for Awareness
I should stress that although this book is critical of technology, it is not anti-technology. My Ph.D. is in Instructional Design and Technology, and I am an Assistant Professor of First-Year Writing and Instructional Technologies at Coastal Carolina University, where I teach a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in English, New Media, Education, and Liberal Studies. As adjunct faculty at Old Dominion University, I teach courses in cognition, gaming, and computer-based multimedia design in the Instructional Design and Technology doctoral program. In addition, I am an Evaluation Analyst at Johns Hopkins University, where I typically review and evaluate educational technologies developed by private companies for public school districts. I am far from being a Luddite; technology informs nearly all aspects of my life. As a father of four, I contribute my fair share of photos and videos to the social media du jour so that I might keep friends and family up to date on our lives. And I was born in late 1981, which, by most demographersâ standards, is the demarcation year separating Generation X from the Millennial Generation.3 No, it is not the intention of this book to shame younger generations for their digital habits or to sweepingly diagnose all technology users as addicts; rather, this book investigates the byproducts of insatiable gratification that accompanies all of our increasingly digital lives, morphing our mobile devices into habit machines that feed our on-demand impulses. This book is not an indictment of technology but an advocate for self-awareness and self-regulation instead.
I will confess here that I am not a model smartphone user. In fact, I am not sure that such a model even exists. Like many others, I sleep with my smartphone on my bedside table, and it is the first thing I check in the morning. I lose track of time while scrolling through my Twitter and Instagram feeds. I am guilty of texting and driving. I fidget with my device when I am trapped in uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations, and I check email and text messages while having a conversation with someone else. I catch myself checking my phone for no particular reason. My smartphone is omnipresent, and it has mutated into an extension of myself. This is precisely why I wrote this book.
Recognizing this as unhealthy dependence, I have made concerted efforts to curtail my smartphone usage. I installed an app on my phone, Moment, to monitor my usage more closely and set limits on the length of time I can use my phone each day, forcing me to ration my usage. I also have tried completely separating myself from my device for extended periods of time. I would leave it in my car when I got home from work and at the house when running errands around town. But without my phone, I felt naked and vulnerable. What would I do if there was an emergency, or if I had missed something important that required an urgent response? (This did actually happen to me once; a co-worker sent out an email to the entire university saying she had been cleaning out her attic and had a box full of original vinyl records of The Beatles. She would give them all to the first person to reply to her email. I was the second to reply, and I have regretted it ever since.) I tried quitting my smartphone cold turkey, but it was not effective for me. I would only subsidize my device-free time by spending excessively more time on it later. Much like a nicotine fiend trying to quit smoking, I would often justify my relapses (âIâm expecting an important emailâ or âI need to see todayâs newsâ), and then overindulge in a smartphone binge. A sort of smartphone chain-smoker. Through my many conversations with others, I have found that this paradox is systemic; many of us cling to our devices yet secretly crave disconnection. And it is very likely that you either identify with one or more of these statements or know of someone who would.
The implication here is that we have normalized our techno...