Is Mobile Phone Truly A Distraction?
Mobile phones in the present world are inseparable part an individual’s life and the has impacted almost every sectors of life. These devices are a phenomenon of modern innovation, as in their hands the communication, information, and entertainment are contained. However, this unprecedented access has sparked a critical debate: In asking the question whether mobile phones are blessings, or have turned out to be one of the greatest evils in today’s society?
While people have become interconnected in this phase, the connectivity has marked questionable significance.
Communication is one area that has benefited massively from the usage of the mobile phones. Applications such as the instant messaging, social media, and video calls enable people to communicate with their close ones regardless the distance. They are essential during disasters and acts as a medium of learning and career development through e-learning and work from home. However, this so-called mobile connectivity cannot be without negative impacts.
Programs in this category are developed to grasp people’s notice. These social media apps including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have complex features that ensure they captivate the user thereby using a lot of time on them. This is known as doomscrolling or infinite scrolling whereby people spends hours scrolling, and this affects productivity and mental health. The message, call, and chat notifications overwhelm the consumer, which makes distraction a regular occurrence.
As for the use of mobile phones in professional environments, they are both a boon and a bane. They as much as they allow for fast communication and information retrieval they are also much of a distraction. The paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology proved that phone presence on a table is sufficient to impair performance as people have a latent thought of an incoming call or message. In other words, it makes one constantly in a state of partial attention which in the end contributes to poor productivity and inability to address tasks at hand.
It is clear therefore that the social, need to grap with the mental health implication of mobile phone usage. The usage of the Internet and mobile devices, particularly social networks, harms users’ health by causing anxiety, depression, and loneliness if they spend too much time online. The culture of comparison arising from the use of the social media platform also has a very negative impact on the users self-esteem and their body image in particular. However, light from the screen mainly blue light disrupt sleep and the lack of it leads to sleep problems that are associated with several health issues.