How Smartphones Change The Way You Think | Jeff Butler | TEDxHilliard

welcome to Jing Chou China a booming city with many local attractions it's a sunny day aside from a light smog and noisy from the traffic zipping by on the busy street a woman walks hand-in-hand with her two-year-old son she's excited to start her weekend shopping spree the two of them sit down at a bus stop and wait for the oncoming bus in order to pass time the mother pulls out her smartphone and starts to play games but after a short while the mother hears a loud crack starved she looks up and realizes she's missing something her two-year-old son she then looks in the direction of the crack to find her two-year-old son is bleeding to death underneath a white van her son were not when she was not looking he was immediately rushed to the hospital but did not make it in time leaving the mother roadside weeping this is a true story from the shanghai Chronicle and that is why I'm here today to talk to you about why are we so hooked with our smartphones this talk will be divided into three different parts the first part is how I began studying smartphone usage second is how do you get pulled into using your smartphone and third but last but not least our tips that you can use after this talk to have a more empowering and efficient relationship with your smartphone now it's pretty easy to scalp out someone who stuck to their smartphone many of us have an image of someone walking across the street unaware of the surroundings playing the game like I don't know Pokemon go this might be funny but it's a different story when it happens in your own life recently I took a big financial risk I could add a job in the pursuit of my entrepreneurial dreams but it was not a yellow brick road I immediately lost money and relationships and more money relationships that I lost the more time I spent to my smartphone trying to forget the reality that I lived in but it was in seconds minutes or hours but days where I was trying to forget who I was as a person that is what led me to study smartphone usage some people say were hooked others dependent some researchers even go so far to say as we are addicted regardless of the label to figure out what's what's really going on let's look at the number one smart phone using country in the world South Korea in 2015 South Korea was reported that it had 88 percent of its population as smartphone users in addition to that stat a government survey concluded that one out of every South Korean child showed symptoms of smartphone addiction to put this in perspective how many of you know someone was an alcoholic well the thing is is that the National Institute of alcoholism states that one out of every 12 Americans are alcoholics which is a lower ratio the number of children with self in South Korea who have smartphone addiction now what is addiction that's such a big word to throw around well the science social review a couple researchers and article concluded that if you have some of the following symptoms you could have smartphone addiction disregard negative consequences chronic anxiety or lack of impulse control I'm sure many of us here have a smartphone in either our pocket or purse and if you keep checking that during the talk that has lack of impulse control which is a symptom of smartphone addiction since the United States is increasing the smartphone usage in fact were projected to hit 70 percent in a couple of years it's more imperative than ever to understand why as addictions are taking place in other countries if we do not learn there's a strong possibility that we will also follow in their footsteps now how do we get pulled into using our smartphones well I'm going to go over two different ways the first one is sociological peer pressure how many of you get frustrating when someone does not respond to a text message fast enough come on yeah we all do that why because there's a possibility that someone can respond immediately so in a way we expect it and being a recipient you want to be a good spouse significant other or co-worker so what do you do well you make yourself just that much more available here that much more available there and it's perpetuates to a point where you're literally on your phone 24/7 because you're trying to keep up with external obligation it may also notice this is very common in the workplace managers literally have their employees on a leash because the convenience factor of Technology employees now they bring their home work home saying oh I have to take care of some 9:00 p.m. emails what we find though is that moving forward that some countries are fighting back France recently announced that they are outline banning emailing for companies more than 50 people on the weekends that's that's funny isn't it the thing is is that they state that people have the right to disconnect people have the right to disconnect doesn't mean that you also have the right to disconnect in America because the convenience factor that technology brings to our daily lives or expected to be more available through external obligation now that's the peer pressure aspect what about the neurological aspect what happens in our brains well there's a lot of ways this happens I'm going to go over one for the short talk and that is through notifications yes text messages emails or an app on your phone telling you is a one degree change in the weather and when you receive this notification you feel good why well loved one just texted from across the United States or you finally figured out that UPS package finally arrived at your doorstep but underneath the happiness the brain is secreted dopamine and an instant the brain associates dopamine with a notification creating a bond also known as an arrow Association therefore when you look for that notification in the future or rather the dopamine you look for the notification and there you go round and round notification dopamine notification dopamine but the brain takes it one step further after that it becomes desensitized instead of needing 5-10-15 notifications to feel that hi you now need 20 50 or 100 you're essentially running a treadmill of dopamine through notifications but is that really that bad I mean sure you're stuck on your phone but more and you feel good from all that dopamine hits well here's an interesting question how many of you tuned me out for a couple of seconds hopefully not minutes during this talk we do this all the time think of a really boring meeting when someone uninteresting is talking so what do you do you say well I'm gonna tune them out for a little bit so you take out your phone you look down for a dopamine hit huh you see you have a rhythm where you expect dopamine hits and if I'm not fast enough you tune me out because you've adapted to the rapid stimulus of notifications from your phone making everyday tasks such as reading writing or simply talking to a friend difficult out of all places Margaret's off corporation supports this point of view stating that in the digital age our attention span has now dropped down to eight seconds headlining I kid you not your attention span is less than a goldfish thanks Microsoft William powers in this book Hamels blackberry points out the caveat to this thinking as he says the greatest thinkers of our time that were considered geniuses were able to apply their intelligence and focus depth to their work to bear forth new ideas the ability to focus or have depth is what makes life rich intellectually emotionally or through meaning end quote yes the practicality that smartphones brings to our daily lives is phenomenal but it comes at the price of shallow thinking is not what we do in the digital world that's so powerful but rather outside of the digital world who are able to analyze interpret the information for deeper meaning unfortunately from adapting to the rapid stimulus notifications we are less able to focus now I know that sounds really scary because now your attention spends less than a goldfish according to Microsoft so what do you do about this well I put in three tips in this speech that could help out with this predicament the first one is you get to play psychotherapist for a bit write down why why do you want to have why do you check your phone so much maybe you're excited because a loved one might text you guilty because your boss is on your back or maybe you might want to escape you want to avoid that escape reason it's an easy segue into addiction that's the first reason second very common advice but it's turn your phone off during certain times of the day first thing in the morning lasting an evening because smartphones have been shown to drop sleep cycles or more importantly during moments of intellectual depth and focus big of lunch with a friend or dinner with your kids just put it away that's tip number two tip number three is reducing the number of notifications coming to your phone yes I know it feels great being a micro celebrity when your phone keeps going off in front of your friends but honestly no one cares except for you what you'll find is as you reduce the number of notifications the ability to focus Rises and correspondence to review play psychotherapist for a bit write down why to turn off your phone during certain times of the day and three reducing the number of notifications coming to your phone going back now to Jing Jie Zhao China with the woman weak and roadside because of the death of her son we no longer see an oblivious parent but rather there was a battle at hand for the mother's attention a one hand or smartphone the other her son in this case the smartphone went out yes the practicality that smartphones brings to our daily lives is phenomenal but it comes at the price and near addictive behavior and the shortening of our attention spans some pay higher price than others but as we learn to master this new technology just like any other innovation in the past we will be brought to new heights of achievement and the point of this talk is to reveal those unattended consequences so we can use it as a stepping stone to those bitter Heights thank

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 278,350

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Technology, Communication

Id: pWvSwX-jq7o

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2016