Ann Blumer
Abnormal Psychology
26 Oct 2017
Reflection #2 (TOPIC 3) Let me take you back. It was a dinner reflective of both my social conformity as well as my ignorance. After all, as I peered around the room, it was difficult to find eyes that were latched on to actual reality and not virtual reality. So what do you expect? I was a newborn teen and my Chanukah present had just arrived in the mail. I was just as eager as the rest of the restaurant to use it. So I did. It was almost at that moment, as if I was detached from society. It had been months since I had seen him, and the words flowing out of my Grandpa’s mouth were being shattered by the bright vibrant light coming off of my now turned on phone. Dinging and ringing sounded …show more content…
M. Twenge would agree. Her article, Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation, which exposes the proven, yet harsh reality of cell phone use, specifically sheds light on the detrimental impacts of smartphones, pointing readers to the alarming statistics that have been accompanying this technological gimmick since the day it was born. It’s easy to become caught up with cell phone use because one app always leads to the next. Like neurons, you are constantly making connections, whether it’s to advertisements on websites, social media, or just entertaining news forums: the more you connect the more connections you make, and the longer you build these connections for, the harder it will be to ignore this means of …show more content…
Whether it’s getting notifications all the time, or worrying about how the person on the other side will respond to your text, or whether someone opened your Snapchat but didn’t respond, it just opens the door the door for anticipatory anxiety, especially for people like me who are prone to this sort of unease and overthinking. No wonder why depression rates have skyrocketed “21 percent from 2012 to 2015” for boys… “while girls’ increased by 50 percent” (Twenge). It’s an easy trap to fall into. When all you have are words on a screen, facial expressions, and sometimes no context, you can never really gain the full essence of the supposed “conversation.” How can that sit easy with someone? Never mind the easy access to social media, just offering added things to compare oneself to, get bullied over, or distracted by. And worst of all: It keeps you up at night. Teenagers whose sleep is especially crucial, are getting less and less, while becoming more and more active on their smartphones. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to show the correlation between sleep and depression