Jeaho Kim/ The Hurtful and Helpful/ Tuesday 11 a.m.

The Hurtful and Helpful

If we take a look back into the past, when we were children we probably ran around the playground and searched for friends that are nearby; we never had to call each other at any time because we knew that our friends would come out at the similar time. Nowadays, we always have to contact each other first, not just because we are busier but because we are too concentrated on our smartphones. The creation of smartphones was revolutionary because it changed the lifestyles of the population in this century. However, we may think of only the positive effects of smartphones when there are even side effects to sticking to the smartphone too long. The increasing usage of smartphones affects the body, the amount of reading books and newspapers, and our social interaction with others

          

           When we grab onto our smartphones, we tend to chat, surf online, or watch videos. It is fine to do that for an appropriate length of time. Although, spending hours and hours on that little device in your hands may bring aches and pains on your body. Overusing smartphones may be a big burden on your shoulders, hands, and your intervertebral discs. Some people even visit the doctor because of these uncomfortable strains. But this is not just affect your body parts, it even affects your brain. Especially when you have not reached puberty, the left brain develops first then the right brain develops. However, smartphones accelerates the development of the left brain and disturb the growth of the right brain and cause imbalance. From this, we can see that using smartphones too long will only increase pain.

          

           Then what about our relationship with paper? Due to smartphones, we don't even look at books that often. Spending too much time on entertainment makes us forget that we need our daily dose of healthy reading. In the past, since almost nothing was handheld back then, we always brought books to read inside the bus or train. But now, we always watch videos, go on our SNS, surf on the internet, go shopping, play games, so on and so forth, in a single device which is the size of our palms. This can make us blind from the books that still exist on our bookshelves. Books and newspapers always gave us new vocabulary and idioms that we can learn but smartphones only aid in developing internet slang.

          

           Finally, the most serious symptom of addiction to smartphones is the lack of social interaction we have with others. People tend to go on SNS and chat with their friends online and share their information instead of meeting with them directly.. This leads to "Cyber Life Obsession" which is being addicted to SNS. Once people are addicted to SNS, they start to be too honest on their SNS accounts and sometimes even lead to having bad impressions on others. Although SNS is effective in receiving fast information about others, it is not a suitable place to share your thoughts openly. If we think about it, SNS is only a cyber-world that not reality and since it is not reality, we become more confident with talking to others. This definitely helps the development of relationships and broadening communication but it can also isolate people from the outside reality.

 

           Therefore, addiction to smartphones can badly influence the body, the relationship with books and newspapers, and the communication with people. Smartphones are definitely a great source of information and a great way to increase confidence but it can be very harmful if overused. Let us efficiently use this new revolutionary technology so we can have less damaging effects on our life.