It might not have a cord, but we are most certainly attached.
And what is not to love about a smart phone? My phone is like a kind of limb – the Bionic Woman kind, I like to imagine. But really it is more like a digital growth.
I am a bit lopsided without it and I feel best when it is attached. It is physically a bit helpless – I have learnt the hard way that it cannot swim and is not very resilient when it falls down – but, where knowledge is concerned, it is the bomb diggity.
We just have to remember who’s boss.
As this publication reported, the Growing Up Digital Australia study had some alarming findings: almost all parents think digital media and technologies are distracting for themselves and that their kids’ heads are likewise turned.
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Screeds have been written about smart phone addiction. There is no doubt some people have a real problem, but for most of us phone use is a choice because of the gifts the little treasures hold within.
Even though conversation nearly always frames them negatively, smart phones are certainly not all bad if we use them deliberately instead of without thought.
We have so much at our fingertips. We get lost less and can check facts more. Our phones even know where we have been and anticipate where we are going and it is all in the cloud – like some kind of omnipotent being.
I am not sure I can go too long without one. And that is a choice.
Going off grid and spurning the cell for a spell is a thing.
Not on Insta anymore. Not digitally connected. Getting back in touch with the earth: it can come across as a bit pious (and strangely cool) with a retro vibe. And these detoxes rarely last long.
Phones have become so much to us.
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For starters, we now can’t go anywhere without them, given they are the device through which we have to check in in case the worst happens and there is a COVID outbreak.
They track us, and thanks to the pandemic, being tracked is now a good thing.
My phone is my alarm clock, starting me off positively each morning with U2’s Beautiful Day. It counts my steps, tracks my fitness levels and tells me what I have on my agenda. It even encourages me to power down and the day’s end.
But wait: there’s more. Phones are now a dictionary, a multilingual translator and an encyclopedia. We buy things with them, collect points on them and use them to get from A to B.
They link us to precious people, important news and have replaced the community noticeboards as well as address and phone books.
We can watch storm fronts approaching miles away and check real-time conditions on our favourite surf breaks when we are at work.
We take photos and videos with them, and keep our treasured ones in virtual albums.
To my mind, where smart phones are concerned, the future beckoned and we were right to take the call.
Jane Stephens is a USC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer.
