“WE AS HUMANS ARE VULNERABLE , AND MANY OF THE APPS INSIDE THE SMARTPHONE ARE BEING ENGINEERED TO USE THESE VERY VULNERABILITIES AGAINST US ”
JOE HOLLIER CEO , LIGHT
Smartphones are a revolutionary , utterly ubiquitous step in the evolution of human communication and experience . Never before have we had such a powerful tool readily available to us at all times . And if it remained just that - a tool - then things would probably be fine .
In May of 2021 , a team of anthropologists who spent more than a year documenting smartphone use in nine countries around the world , from Ireland to Cameroon , published a study which posits that human beings now mentally and emotionally exist more in our smartphones than in the physical world . “ We have become human snails carrying our homes in our pockets ,” said Profesor Daniel Miller of University College London . “ The smartphone is no longer just a device that we use . It has become the place where we live .”
Miller calls this phenomenon “ the death of proximity .” Another team of psychologists who did a similar study in 2018 call it “ phubbing ”: the act of snubbing someone in a social setting in favour of concentrating on your mobile device . Excessive phubbing , according to
122 November 2021