The next step in smartphone addiction- toilet texting. According to a new study, the magazines and newspapers have lost their appeal in the bathrooms among 75% of the american people. Nothing says “i missed you”, like a good old fashion text from the toilet of a loved one.
ToiletTexting-infographic
read more http://www.sociableblog.com/2012/03/07/toilet-texting-smartphone-addiction/
The Prince Charles Cinema in Londons Leicester Square is taking matter in their own hands by employing so-called ninjas to stop rude texters. A semi questionable method, but at list they look great in leotard.
read more http://www.slashfilm.com/wtf-london-theater-employing-volunteer-ninjas-to-confront-rude-moviegoers/
Bonnie Tubbs in a detailed and funny post explaining about Smartphone Addiction:
Hi, my name is Bonnie and I am a cellphone addict. It has been about two minutes since I last checked my phone.
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I personally don’t feel my irrepressible compulsion to check my phone every couple of minutes has affected my work or relationships. I have no doubt my editor would back me up on that, once he has forgiven me for overshooting deadline again. And if I had any real-life friends, I am sure they would attest to it too.
Great read, enjoy.
We see more and more articles about Smartphone Addiction. Some contain tips for “how to stop” the addiction, but more times than none I disagree with those tips.
Susan Davis has published a post about Smartphone Addiction and what to do about that. The post is very detailed, acknowledging some research on the subject. And then there’s the “tips” section.
Yeah right…
Here are the tips brought there, and my comments on each of those, as someone who is practicing the Digital Diet on a daily basis, trying different methods:
Be conscious of the situations and emotions that make you want to check your phone. Is it boredom? Loneliness? Anxiety? Maybe something else would soothe you.
Well, that’s an interesting tip, as it drives you to think WHY you want to check your phone so much. A good exercise indeed, but I don’t know anyone who could “think” philosophically about those things 150 times a day when he wants to reach out to his phone. And “Maybe something else would sooth you” – is not a great tip IMHO for any rehabilitation process. Should I smoke or eat out of bordom instead of checking my phone ?
Be strong when your phone beeps or rings. You don’t always have to answer it. In fact, you can avoid temptation by turning off the alert signals.
OK. I always wanted to be strong. Rocky Balboa strong. But I don’t know how to be strong when my phone beeps. I just wanna check out what’s in there.
The second half of the advice is a super smart one, which I personally recommend – turn off the alert signals, and you don’t have to be strong anymore. You can just forget that your phone is there.
Be disciplined about not using your device in certain situations (such as when you’re with children, driving, or in a meeting) or at certain hours ( for instance, between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.).
That’s a great tip indeed. These days when I get in the car, I put my phone into “airplane mode”, so when I’m in traffic, I’m not tempted to check my whatsapp. Same trick at night time, so when I wake up I don’t see those 20 notifications that delay me from starting my day with a great shower and breakfast.
Do you have a great tip for how to overcome your smartphone addiction?
South Korean doctors have found that increasing use of smartphones among young Koreans has led to a surge in incidence of “digital dementia” characterized by deterioration of cognitive abilities and symptoms found in people who have suffered head injury.
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…heavy reliance on smartphones creates an imbalance in brain development which leads to the left side of the brain becoming overstimulated while the right side suffers and becomes relatively stunted. Heavy use of smartphones engages the left brain at the expense of the right, leading to deterioration of right side-leaning cognitive abilities and symptoms of “digital dementia,” which include loss of memory, short attention span and problems regulating emotion.
Gi-won said: “Heavy [technology] users are likely to develop the left side of their brains, leaving the right side untapped or underdeveloped.”
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/353047#ixzz2XhO0v21y
In this nice blog post from the Bangkok Post, Sukhumaporn Laiyok is writing her opinion about Smartphone addiction.
One of her stories in that post really caught my eyes:
People find it hard to tear themselves away from these little gizmos. The other day I saw a woman using her smartphone when exercising. As she was working out on a treadmill she used one hand to hold the…
Wherever you are in the world – New York, Tel-Aviv or Bangkok – people see the same sights, and feel the same about the Smartphone Addiction.
// Lior Frenkel
Smartphone Use In A Day
UNDIGITIZE.ME is a knowledge center for anything related to Smartphone addiction. In addition to writing on the subject and quoting people’s stories, we’d like to use Infographics, as they are the best way to spread information nowadays. Big up for this first one, made by our talented graphic designers.
Painted by Michal Yaffe
This item was sent to us by Michal Yaffe, a painter from Israel. Michal has painted a series of images showing our current digitized world last year, and contacted us as soon as she noticed the UNDIGITIZED.ME project. More of her work can be found here.
A survey done by Cisco in Australia, shows that nine out of every ten people, under the age of 30, admit to suffering from NoMoPhobia.
credit: quittyprickly.blogspot.com
“It’s happening subconsciously, and one out of five people are texting while they’re driving,” Cisco chief technology officer Kevin Bloch said yesterday. “It just speaks to these addictive, compulsive, behaviours that we’re seeing…For many under-30s, the smartphone has become an extension of themselves, from the moment they wake up until the second they fall asleep,” said Bloch.”This love affair with the smartphone is both enabling and crippling at the same time,” Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, official adviser to the Queensland Government on computer safety, was quoted by the daily as saying.
These people check their smartphones at least once every 10 minutes. So is it an addiction or what?
57% of u.s. women would rather give up sex than their smartphone for a week
We got the iPad, and the iPhone. Now we can finally never speak again.
No cell phone while ordering policy
In the last few years I’ve developed apps for the iPhone. As a developer, you want your app to succeed, you want users to download it, use it daily, then make it viral. It’s super easy to connect your app to Facebook these days, and by that you can increase engagement of the users – you. You can also add push notifications, which means you are allowed to nag your user, whenever you want to, not thinking about where he is now, or what he’s doing.
Developers should take responsibility
I remember me and the other guys in our startup sitting around the table, thinking how to make people use our app more and more. But at the same time, our team was super fair and we didn’t want to spam users, just like we don’t like it when apps are spamming us. This kind of behaviour means being responsible. Not just thinking about number of daily downloads, and how many times a day the user plays with our app; we were thinking about ourselves when we thought of “users”.
where’s my iPhone?
Two weeks ago I wrote about the fear of being without your phone, AKA “NoMoPhobia”.
Now, I always thought that I’m the only crazy person in the room, when I used to hear my phone ringing, vibrate or the sounds of various notifications – but it wasn’t! I’m hearing the familiar noise, pick up my phone, and nothing. It was all in my imagination.
Did my smart-shoe just ring?!
I just found out I’m not the only crazy around. This sensation and false belief that the phone rang while in fact it isn’t doing so, is called “Phantom Ringing Syndrome”. It usually happens when you are concentrated on something, like watching TV, taking a shower or using a noisy device.
Have a short break from your connected life…
Check out this amazing campaign by Kit Kat. Their ongoing tagline is “Have a break, have a Kit Kat”. So since we have zero breaks these days – because we are constantly connected, Kit Kat came up with this brilliant project. They placed “No-Wifi” zones on social places in Amsterdam. In these zones you can’t be plugged in to the network, so voila – you must really listen to your friends, and watch the street go by.
Here’s the nice video they done for promoting the campaign:
The WORD is out. People around me are chatting about the Organic Connectivity, and about the concepts of Organic Apps vs Junk Apps.
Some of them even started using their phones less and less, and they tell me they enjoy longer conversations with their friends, and better mornings. That is exactly what happened with my friend Shiran.
Shiran, get off yer phone already!
Shiran is a super popular girl. She has 2,500 friends on Facebook, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s actually in contact with most of them. She’s writing a successful blog about fashion, and works for a PR company. Being social is the essence of her life and career, and that is why she’s an easy pray for the Junk Apps, for the “Likes” on Facebook and Instagram… Shiran is also super intelligent, not one that is easily tricked. But she – like all of us – got hooked by the Smartphone.
frrr…. frrr… frrrr…
My alarm clock is running. It must be 8AM already. I grab my phone with two fingers, using a third one to turn it off with an elegant swipe gesture. My left eye is closed, my right is half open. My mind starts figuring out what appears on the screen. Notifications.
Right on, let’s start the work. What should we check first – the whatsapp messages? there are eight from The Friends group, they probably went for a drink whilst i fell asleep. Three more msgs from the girl I’m dating, well that could wait a bit. Facebook messages? could be from someone from the office, or from some old friend. Four new likes in Instagram for a picture I uploaded last night? Well that’s REALLY not important, but my ego wants it checked. And two more emails – wait a sec, it could be an urgent matter from the office, but oh, maybe it’s just spam… Next to all those icons, I see my To Do List icon, reminding me of today’s tasks.
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