01 Aug Addicted to your smartphone? Here’s 5 ways to get on top of things…
Technology and in particular, smartphones can be fantastic devices. They allow us access to what in the past would have been unimaginable amounts of information; and allow us to connect with friends and colleagues so, so easily.
Many of the activities we can carry out on these phones might make us happy; but too much use can certainly detract from our happiness.
For real happiness, therefore, we need to balance healthy use with other activities; and if you feel like it’s all a bit out of control then you’ll find these 5 tips well worth trialling…
via Time by Eric Barker
How long do you think the average work email goes unread? 10 minutes? 5 minutes? 1 minute?
Try 6 seconds.
From Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked:
In reality, 70 percent of office emails are read within six seconds of arriving.
Yes, Houston, we have a problem. Instead of improving our lives, technology is increasingly getting in the way of enjoying our lives. And the biggest source of trouble is that device that’s with you wherever you go. I figured it was time to call an expert for some advice…
Adam Alter is a professor of marketing at NYU and author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.
Some might say that they’re not addicted to technology — they just enjoy it. But those same people probably say things like, “I wish I had more time to do the things I love.” As Thoreau once said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
Well, people average 3 hours a day on their phones. In the pre-smartphone era that number was just 18 minutes. And what happens when you ask young adults if they’d rather have a broken bone or a broken phone? Here’s Adam:
There’s a study that was done asking people, mainly young adults, to make a decision: if you had to break a bone or break your phone what would you prefer? Forty-six percent of people would prefer to have a broken bone than a broken phone. But even for the fifty-four percent of people who say they’d prefer to have a broken phone, it wasn’t a snap decision. They agonized over it.
And if you have kids, this issue is even more serious. Children don’t learn empathy and emotional intelligence from screens. And Adam says kids now spend 20% less time playing face-to-face. Guess where that time went? Exactly.
No doubt, Steve Jobs changed the world with the iPad. But what most people don’t know is he wouldn’t let his children use one. As he told the New York Times in 2010, “We limit how much technology our kids use in the home.”
Alright, “scared straight” time is over. The question of the hour is, “What the heck is going on here and what can we do about it?” Adam has some great ideas, backed by research. Let’s get to it…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE