Smartphones and Loneliness Essay

Introduction

Technology is in the center of human life; there is not an area of life in which we do not deal with technology. The progress of technology has increased rapidly for twenty years. As a result of this speedy progress, the variety of technological devices have enlarged. That is, smartphones are the most used technological devices today. This extensive usage has brought some sociological changes with it. To keep someone at bay is the primary effect of the overuse of cell smartphones. Therefore, smartphones promote loneliness because they shorten the time-wasting in real life, break off the family relations and detract from the social experience and friends even though some people believe in the idea that the smartphones help to find friends via social media.

Body Paragraphs

Smartphones have gradually changed and have become the most significant technological part of people. They affect personal relationships in a negative way that people become asocial. The smartphones, in the vernacular of the day: ease the daily routines. People solve most of their problems via smartphones because they include high technological applications. The smartphones' ability to do a job prevents a human being from doing it by itself. Everyone decides to do most of the work by their smart devices while resting across the television at home. The people do not go shopping to look for some clothes, banks for money transfer, parks or game places to have fun anymore. In this sense, one can argue that the smartphones and the loneliness have a close relationship (Lapierre p. 125-134). This relationship breaks off communication with other people in society. The time that people spend with other people gets shorter as their use of mobile smartphones increases. How much they use the phone, that much they become alone. The loneliness is the natural consequence of time-wasting too much with the smartphones.

The use of smartphones affects family relations, as well. Mostly the adolescents spend their time alone in their rooms instead of doing something with their families. When we think about what they are doing in their rooms, one idea comes to mind: they play with their smartphones. Too much use of smartphones results in a health problem and anxiety, which harms the family relations (Hawi, Samaha 1). The concept of family differs for the ones that waste most time with the phone. The smartphones become the new family. That situation may cause some marriage problems as parental discord and divorcement, or on the other hand, it leads to some psychological issues of children during their growth. All of them are the harmful effects of the use of smartphones; however, loneliness is the one that is mostly seen in society; smartphones isolate the user from the outer world.

The smartphones do not affect just the family relations but the friendships. Smartphone users become so addicted to their devices that they are required to look at their smartphones every time. This situation does not change whether they are alone at home or they spend time with their friends. When young people come together, it is probably impossible to see that they do not glance at their smartphones. The communication between the people decreases even though they come together. People miss their friends and sit somewhere for hours; however, they require to check their smartphones whether they get notifications from social media. Communication with friends has transferred to social media. People send messages or call each other to each other instead of meeting. This is hard to understand the feelings and the behaviors of their friends. People need to have fun and share their happiness or sadness with others. Unfortunately, smartphones prevent this from happening. Therefore, people live their feelings alone.

Besides all this, some resources show that new friendships are established online. Most of the people, especially the youngers, prefer online bonds rather than face-to-face friendship (“Amanda Lenhart,” para. 2). People use their smartphones as a mediator to set up new friendships which makes them lazier. Social media applications are an easy way of meeting a new person because the users do not see their behaviors, feel their emotions. They use their fingers to talk to someone. That is easy, but not a decent way of finding a new friend.

Conclusion

As a result, the use of technological devices increased in a way that social relationships drastically changed. People move away from each other from day to day. Face-to-face meetings and friendships have already been replaced to online friendships. The smartphones become the closest stuff, for a friend, for a family member, after all, for everyone. The close relationships of people and smartphones cause loneliness even if no one is aware of it. These technological monsters harm human relations. People do not spend much time with their friends and families. Instead, they have fun with their smartphones, and they share their feelings with them. This is a sociological problem in today's world.

References

“Amanda Lenhart.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 1 Oct. 2015, www.pewresearch.org/staff/amanda-lenhart/.

Hawi, Nazir S., and Maya Samaha. “Relationships among Smartphone Addiction, Anxiety, and Family Relations.” Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 36, no. 10, July 2017, pp. 1046–1052., doi:10.1080/0144929x.2017.1336254.

Lapierre, Matthew A. “Smartsmartphones and Loneliness in Love: Testing Links between Smartphone Engagement, Loneliness, and Relational Health.” Psychology of Popular Media, vol. 9, no. 2, 2020, pp. 125–134., doi:10.1037/ppm0000230.