Few, nowadays, would be naïve enough to argue that mobile technology has not had a profound effect on the way we live our lives.
However, thanks, in no small measure, to the advent of social media, many will argue that it has contributed a net negative effect when it comes to the overall quality of our lives.
‘Fingertip functionality’
I’ll be the first to admit that mobile technology has delivered the convenience of ‘fingertip functionality’ in spades.
In just a few clicks we can pinpoint exactly where we are in the world, send an instant message to family or friends, look up a restaurant menu, hail a taxi, order groceries, translate a sign in a foreign language, and the list goes on.
Great, yes … but it’s not all champagne and roses!
The ‘heads-down’ culture
Social media and gaming platforms have jumped at the opportunity to harness the convenience of mobile technology to render their frighteningly addictive offerings ubiquitous.
It is this combination of mobile technology and social media that is the primary driver of what I call the ‘heads-down’ culture that has recently emerged among people of all walks of life, but particularly the younger generation who have never been exposed to another way.
Not long ago I grabbed the arm of a heads-down young friend, who I was walking with, and yanked them out of the path of a speeding electric scooter.
Window on the world
An interesting discussion ensued about the habitual tendency of many nowadays to walk everywhere while transfixed by their mobile phone screens.
“It gives us instant connectivity to, and an instant window on, the world around us,” argued my friend.
There is an obvious attraction to this but like anything in life, too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing.
I imagined someone with a fascination for the wider universe peering continuously through the tiny eyepiece of a giant telescope. No matter how wondrous the sights that the telescope might reveal, never looking away would seriously distort one’s perspective of the world that exists under one’s feet!
FOMO and discomfort
Of course, if you become so used to, and immersed in, the view afforded by the telescope, taking time out to survey your local environment might mean missing out on a new development in the wider universe!
Not only that, but dealing with the all too real but ‘unfamiliar’ local environment might leave you feeling a little uncomfortable or even scared!
And this combination of FOMO in the digital world, and general discomfort with the physical world, goes directly to the heart of the reason why the heads-down culture is becoming so prevalent.
Look around you and observe
Next time you find yourself in a coffee shop, restaurant, or anywhere designed for physical socialising, or bringing people together, look around you.
Take time to observe the shocking degree to which people choose to go heads-down, immersing themselves in their comfortable digital worlds, rather than interacting with the real world around them.
We humans were not designed to restrict our focus to such tiny screens for such lengthy periods. Our mental health – not to mention our eyes and other sensory organs – is dependent on the varied and authentic stimulation that nature, our surroundings, and other people, have to offer.
Determination and courage needed
It takes both determination and courage to swim against the tide and try to break, or at least seriously curtail, the heads-down habit.
After all, powerful vested marketing interests are hard at work to keep people mesmerised by their mobile device screens. They operate by engaging our imaginations, appealing to our egos, and playing to our FOMO.
But for those who can recognise the heads-down culture for what it is – and the toxic effect it can have on physical and social health in the longer-term – there is much to gain by choosing to live heads-up whenever practical.
Nature, and the physical world, has so much more to offer us than the convenient and enticing, yet misleading, one-dimensional, ego-driven, digital world.
Great new life loading
If you are bold enough to admit to a heads-down addiction, try an experiment.
Go heads-up for two weeks. During that period, take time to carefully study the heads-down crowd around you and their general obliviousness to the people and environment around them.
Then decide for yourself who and what is truly important in your life.
Spoiler alert …
… Great new life loading 🙂
Did this resonate with you?
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What an interesting blog. I am just worried how social media can have negative impact on our mental wellbeing.
Yes, Phuti – I’m afraid you are right to be worried!
Thanks, Bill! Thanks for an important contribution.
This an essential message to keep getting out, especially to the generations who have grown up with and literally been force-fed a digital world menu, and seem to know or experience very little else. We simply have to warn of the dangers, and (for those with eyes to see and hearts to discern) the dystopian transhumanist technocratic future that many powerful elites seem to want to create and use to (re)shape and reset the world and humanity, especially of our (current and future) youth. The good news is that together WE (older and younger) can contribute to positively impact and even reverse this dystopian trajectory that we are on. Blessings!
Bill, I think the biggest challenge here is probably because these heads-down devices help us meet almost all of our basic human needs, certainty, variety, significance, love & connection and maybe growth and contribution in a way. Hence the addiction
Hi Mashilo, I would argue to the contrary … that they contribute to serious imbalances between the pairs of basic needs and, in so doing, help prevent us from focusing on our higher, more spiritual needs.
However, as you are a coach that I respect, I would concede that this demonstrates that the debate/discussion needs to be had. 🙂
Thank you, Bill, for creating such a sharp awareness of the risks involved in being addicted to our phones. Several of my clients, one as recently as a few weeks ago, have observed a sharp increase in their productivity when they have decided to break their addiction by shifting their focus towards the task at hand. Not only have they increased their productivity, but they have also felt the benefits physically, mentally and emotionally from this disconnection and have acknowledged that, in fact, scrolling on social media has very little, if any, value at all. They have felt so liberated. Since I decided to choose one day over every weekend to disconnect from all my electronic devices, I have felt so much more peaceful. We can survive without our phones. We just need to believe that.
Thanks Karen. This is a great testament to the value of adopting more of a heads-up approach to life 🙂
What a wonderful blog. Yesterday I was invited to give a talk to a group who work in different fields and my topic was “The Age of Distraction” and how the side effects of undisciplined smartphone usage has a far reaching consequences on those around us. I visit different homes and it is devastating to see that those who seldom get visitors will be sitting silently with someone they haven’t seen in a long be on their phone. I brought up stats on the addiction which is mind blowing. I wrote a document called “Things I Saw Without My Phone” recently. The online world will never be as interesting as the offline world. Thank you Bill for this. Well explained!
You illustrate the points so well – thanks Avy!