It’s Time To Stop Feeling Guilty About Your Smartphone Use
Technology is a funny thing; our culture has become completely dependent upon it, yet we feel bad for using it. Feeling guilty about something that you plan to continue doing can make you, psychologically speaking, “cuckoo like a crazy bird.” This I-can’t-stop-doing-it-but-at-least-I-feel-bad-about-it mentality is especially true for our smartphones.
Be the boss of you
The main way to stop feeling guilty or apologetic about your device is to consciously decide how you want to engage with it. A recent study (by Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers: Internet Trends) found the average user checks their phone 120 to 150 times per day, and that people do not even realize that they are checking it. Psychologists tell us that much of the phone checking is not happening so often because our brains become accustomed to that “potential” connection with another person—and that can become intoxicating on some level. Give some thought to your own device use and determine whether you are using it with awareness and choice, or if you are perhaps acting without being conscious of it. If you think about it, most of the tech behaviors our culture considers it to be RUDE are those where the person is completely unaware of others (e.g., blabbing LOUDLY on a phone call in line at Starbucks, or loudly tapping away on a device in the audience for a speech or a Broadway production).
Lose the guilt
Technology is here to stay. You can decide how much you want to use your device, when you want to have access to it and how responsive you want to be to co-workers, family and the outside world. Once you figure out the level of tech engagement you consider appropriate for yourself, you get to proceed without the guilt.
To determine if you are the boss of your device (or the opposite is true) set a timer for 30 minutes and then turn off email flow on your computer and throw your phone in a drawer today while you focus on other tasks or go and talk to someone. The level of ease or difficulty of this assignment will give you a good gauge of how conscious you are with your device.
