Number of words: 3,963

Human behavior has been shaped by technology ever since stone-tools were invented two million years back. Innovations that followed such as domestication of crops and animals and casting of metals created close-knit communities. Long-term group-thinking that started in such close-knit communities led to the Age of Enlightenment and then to the Industrial Age. This century gave us computers, the internet and digital social media.

At each stage of development technology did three things for us – it released us from physical hard work, it freed up time for creative work and it enabled greater social interaction. So far technology has served us well.

Technologies that are emerging today are unlike what people have experienced in the past. The applications  that are emerging are now trying to save us the mental hard work. They are replacing our cognitive tasks and face-to-face social engagements. Technology is not sparing us time but is consuming more of our attention and time. There are signs that younger generations are becoming less social and avoiding face-to-face interactions¹. Never before has technology got so close to us or under our skin.

The Shift

A decade back, the computing power needed to build systems that could interact with humans was available only in centralized, high-tech laboratories. Tasks like face-recognition, speech-processing, real-time navigation, parsing languages and learning by example were hard even for big computers. Neither did those computers have direct and easy access to sensory input from its users.

Since then there have been impressive advances in the software, hardware and the sensory devices. Software algorithms have become efficient and compact. They are now adaptive and self-learning. Advances in semiconductor technologies produced smaller and more powerful processors. And advances in detectors made it possible to collect sensory data in real time. When all of these systems were integrated, it became possible to run complex cognitive tasks on a hand-held device like a smartphone.

For the first time in history, technology can interact with us personally. It is capable of carrying out our cognitive functions. Consider what a smartphone can already do. It understands when you speak and can talk to you. It can recognize faces and your handwriting. It remembers your contacts and reminds you of appointments. It decides the news you would prefer and can audit your expenses. It can locate you and your friends within a meter anywhere on the earth. Soon there will be apps that monitor physical and mental health and call for medical help. They would even predict emergencies.

To do this effectively, smartphone apps have to take on your personality. Typically apps build a digital profile of you based on your routine, your shopping and social behavior – they become an extension of yourself. Smartphones have changed the way we related to the world and also project ourselves. This time it’s personal – and that is the difference.

Use it or lose it

So far humans have been outsourcing manual hard work to successive technologies. It is possible that, as applications become smarter, people will progressively outsource mental work as well. When apps take over part of our thinking, planning and execution, how will that change our mental development and social interaction ?

Smartphones haven’t been around that long to see their long-term impact. Many studies are underway today to see how smartphones are influencing mental development. These studies focus on three things – memory, attention and ability to delay gratification (that is, self-control). It is not possible to review these studies here, however certain traits are clear (see Henry H. Wilmer et al., 2017, for one such review)².

Matters of Memory

Consider driving for example. Researchers studied taxi  drivers in London in the year 2000³. Using brain-imaging they found that taxi drivers had larger and more active hippocampus than ordinary people. The hippocampus is the region of the brain that understands spatial information and also creates long-term memory.

The hippocampus plays a role not just in driving. It also keeps our social behavior in check according to the social context. It reorganizes long-term memory to build knowledge that creates expertise.

A decade later, in the 21st century people drive cars mostly using navigation apps. They no longer plan, foresee and re-route but trust the blue arrow of navigation. So much so that there are cases of people driving cars into lakes following faulty navigation.

In another study researchers asked people to recall objects after a visit to the museum. One group was allowed to take photos and other group wasn’t. Those who took photos were able to recall less of what they saw. This suggests that when people out-source memory to a device they recall less of what they observe.

I had a similar experience when I took students from a middle school to visit an archeology museum. After the visit I asked my students if they found anything interesting. One boy said ‘many things, I have stored them all on my phone’. A girl said she couldn’t get as much from the trip as she hadn’t got her cellphone. It is as if the real world was not accessible to them unless they have a device to store and share it on.

Our brain integrates memories of first-hand impressions to build the knowledge, and over time that becomes our experience, our wisdom. No amount of backup data can replace what one can gain through direct cognition. Having a record of experiences is not the same has having experiences.

Divided Attention

If a smartphone was a tool like a screw-driver or a musical instrument, then one would use it for a purpose and with a focus. But there is so much going on with smartphones that it is hard to pin them down to a single purpose and use. More often smartphones are a source of continuous disruptions but people just get used to it.

One study found that smartphone distractions can delay a given task by as much as 400 %. If distractions were ‘rich’, like an image or voice message, then the disruption was even worse. The mere presence of a smartphone (even when it is not active) was found to affect attention and performance. Even when the smartphone was removed from sight, people performed poorly on tasks due to the anxiety of missing out on messages.

Multiple studies have shown that those who are hooked to apps exhibit high levels of anxiety, sleep deprivation and a propensity for depression. Students who are heavy users of instant messaging also score lower on the GPA scale. Those who constantly multi-task between apps also show higher level of impulsiveness and an inability to sustain focus on a single task.

Instant Gratification

Another way in which smartphones are influencing human behavior is by providing quick services. Take the case of online-shopping. These services deliver every imaginable item to our doorstep at a short notice. Home delivery of fresh groceries and food from restaurants in the city is another emerging application driven by smartphones. This has taken away the need to plan, shop and prepare food every day.

The same is true for communication. Emails can be sent to millions within milliseconds, but emails are already outdated. People are increasingly using messaging apps to carry out both official and social correspondence. And with some apps messages have become so ephemeral that they self-delete after being read.

Researchers say that the apps, such as above, that enable quick transactions rewire the brain for immediate gratification. These apps reduce patience and lower expectations. One study showed that those who use smartphones extensively prefer smaller immediate rewards compared to others who delayed rewards for larger gains.

In the novel ‘Anne of Green Gables’ by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne says “Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them. You mayn’t get them but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.” And not too long ago we were willing to wait.

In summary, when we outsource memory, we forego real moments. When we divide attention, we forego immersive experience. And when we chose instant gratification, we lose opportunity to relish.

By Design – Addictive multi-tasking

Smartphones have also changed the very way technology companies function. The most important person in today’s media/technology company is not the software engineer but the one who designs the User Interface (UI). His or her job is to create the glue that will bind users to the application. This field is known as ‘persuasive technology’ (leading universities offer courses on this), where principles of persuasive psychology are used to design applications. This is what makes apps highly successful and consequently earn huge profits for their parent companies. The longer one spends time wandering within an app, the more revenue the company makes from advertisements.

Smartphones have become indispensable in a matter of few years because apps have two compelling features – they are addictive and they allow multitasking.  It turns out that humans are, by nature, suckers for tiny attractions and multitasking.

The applications that become addictive have just the right level of complexity, challenges and rewards. If an app is too complex then people give up, and if it is too easy they lose interest.  By generating sporadic and diverse treats apps keep you engaged.

The apps tempt people with small challenges and small rewards. Such tricks lower the barrier to gratification and create urgency to remain engaged. What started as  curiosity or convenience soon becomes a compulsive habit.

These treats come in many forms. Some apps give precisely-timed profile updates or use acknowledgements of changing colors. They send reminders of anniversaries or give credit points. Other apps randomly connect people from contact lists or play videos automatically one after another. Yet more apps give ‘likes’ that serve as collection of compliments, or they promote ‘streaks’: streams of superficial and insistent communication (interestingly, ‘like’ was mostly a verb till it became popular as a noun).

Since people are constantly but half-heartedly using smartphones, they don’t realize how much time is lost. In 2018, US adults spent an average of 3.5 hours every day online. It turns out that 90 % of the time spent on smartphones was spent on just five apps. It is not difficult to guess which apps would those be. This adds to an entire day in a week spent looking at smartphone. That is about 8.5 years of the adult-life spent looking at a smartphone!           

There is one question that I am repeatedly asked during ‘parent-teacher’ meetings in schools, ‘How can we get our child away from smartphone?’. Parents say children get depressed and violent, and go into withdrawal if they are deprived of smartphones. It is hard for parents to counter the grip smartphones have on young minds. Alas, there is no easy answer. Smartphone addiction is on par with drug addiction.

Another glue that holds people to their smartphones is the promise  of multi-tasking. Consider texting, which lends easily to multi-tasking. Decades of data show that texting while driving is dangerous. And yet a survey in 2015 by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that 30 % of adult drivers and 42 % of teenage drivers were routinely texting while driving.

A brain-imaging study done in 2015 found that those who compulsively multitask develop a smaller and less active anterior cingulate cortex – a region of the brain that helps in attention and control. Other studies show that when people multitask, the they take longer to complete the task at hand.  They normally take several minutes to get into the ‘flow’ of work again. Switching between the tasks also results in more mistakes.

Multitasking with smartphones has become so ubiquitous that one doesn’t notice it anymore. Consider an average day at work. How often do we respond to instant messages, search the internet for personal interest, do online shopping, update and view social media posts, plan for the weekend, arrange for vacation – while we are in office.

And when we are on that vacation (the one we planned while in the office), we are responding to a customer escalation, trying to close a deal, checking market trends, worried about a project deadline; and we are still posting on social media. To put it differently – we are neither at work nor on vacation – we are online.

Before smartphones became ubiquitous, people used to talk of work-life balance. That battle is nearly lost now. Not many talk of work-life balance now a days because smartphones have dissolved the work-life separation. Smartphones have hi-jacked both our work-time and life-time.

Time is a Resource

As smartphones connected desires of people to the market – through shopping, entertainment and trading applications – a new free-market economy developed. There is now a race amongst technology companies to claim this market. And it is your attention and time that they are after.

It is not a surprise that your time is treated as a ‘resource’ by this free-market of smartphone services. When time is considered as a resource, powerful economic tools can be applied to its management. One can do cost-benefit analysis of your time. One can match supply-and-demand of time. One can calculate ‘return on investment’ of time.

More time spent on their apps means more advertisements and more profit for the parent company. Why would anyone build an app that discourages you from using it – that would be a terrible business model.

Once you are hooked to an app, they expand their agenda. They promote advertisements and in-app purchases. Apps that began as email start to stream videos. Messaging apps become online payment services. By offering you everything within their app tech companies create a monopoly on your attention and time. The saying is ‘Time is Money’, but in the smartphone economy, it is more like ‘Your time is their Money’.

Is Time a Resource?

Calling time a ‘resource’ has tricked us into bargaining for it on the free market. This is a good example of how labels can influence the way people think. Once the mindset is changed,  it also changes  behavior. And then people don’t question the label.

There are reasons why personal time should not be treated as an economic resource. Inherently time does not behave anything like other economic goods such as stocks, airline tickets, minerals, corn, water or electricity.

Since it is your life that we are talking about here (8.5 years to be specific, that you will spend looking at smartphone), let us take a fresh look at time.

Time is irreversible

Most economic goods can be recreated or substituted to satisfy market demand. If crops fail one year due to drought or flood, a farmer may get a bumper crop the next year or import grains from other places by paying a premium. If the electrical supply fails people can switch to local batteries or generators.

You cannot get time back, whatever premium you are willing to pay. This obvious fact is routinely overlooked because if we miss a thing or get it wrong, we can always redo it. Yes, things you can get back, but not the time. The time that is lost cannot be cultivated or recycled.

Very few apps have this sensibility built into their functions. How much time have you spent on automated call services. And discovered that the option you want isn’t even listed. How many times have you lost work because you forgot to save or your battery died. What would it cost a company to program ‘auto-save’ feature for editors – and yet this isn’t default behavior. (Some editors allow auto-save today, but good luck configuring that). How many advertisements are you forced to see before you get what you want. Or consider when software asks you ‘should I trouble-shoot?’ only to tell you after an hour to contact tech support. And you are back to the automated call service.

Applications that claim your attention are designed to minimize cost and maximize profits for their parent companies. Concern for your time is usually not accounted for in their design and calculation.

Time cannot be shared or divided

Economic resources can be divided, transported and sold. Time can be also divided if we are talking of collective time. ‘If 2 people finish work in 8 days, then 4 people will finish work in 4 days’ – that logic works only for groups. If you were to divide your day doing four things simultaneously then you will take longer to finish and do a worse job of each. What’s more, you will enjoy each task less.

Neither can one share time like other economic resources. The community swimming pool is shared by many. People can rent their houses. The whole banking system works on sharing your money with others. Economic engine works because resources can be shared at a price.

However if you have a week to spare, you cannot wire-transfer that to your grandmother to extend her life. Even when you volunteer to fill-in for a colleague, it is your time that is spent. By hiring a maid or by buying a dishwasher we may spare personal time. That would be of value only if we use it to focus on life. The reality is that we are then tempted to monetize even that spared hour. Our lives have become more hectic despite of such domestic help.

Time is finite for you

Common sense and first-hand experience conspires against us and hides the fact that one has finite time and one day it will come to an end. We feel the flow of time and think there is more to come like water from the tap. Only in hindsight do we feel that years have gone by too fast. This influences our behavior by and large. So how can one wake to the fact that time is finite. Using a metaphor may help us appreciate the finite nature life.

Consider your time as your pension fund at retirement. You have saved and now you have to live within that reserve. How will you spend that time, knowing that every minute you spend is going to diminish the reservoir? You will want to avoid losses that result from re-doing things, dividing or sharing your savings. You would not want your pension-time to be managed by others. You would want to spend it on things that could give you maximum satisfaction.

Or think of your life-span (say 80 years) as a 8 centimeter straight line. Actually draw it on a paper. Then mark the current year on it. Whatever is to the right of that mark is the remaining years you have. It is up to you how you want to segment that remaining time. There are no parallel lines.

Realizing that time is linear and finite may help people change the way they use smart technology.

Time cannot be priced

Pricing a thing implies there are multiple identical items to spend or trade on the free market. Personal time does not lend itself to such transactions. Sometimes doing nothing for a day is most useful to you. At other times an exhausting day’s work may bring more satisfaction.

There used to be a farmer who would bring a sack of potatoes to sell on market day. One day a merchant comes to him and wants to buy all his potatoes. The farmer is not willing to sell him potatoes. The merchant is confused and offers him a premium price, asking “Why wouldn’t you take the money and go home? Your work is done.” The farmer now flatly refuses, saying he likes to sell potatoes throughout the day to many people. That way the day goes by happily as he chats, has tea with customers, and other things are exchanged. What is he to do if he were to sell all potatoes at once? He may take to drinking and gambling.

Such short-term economic thinking, like the merchant above, is very common in the market of smart technologies. It may quickly earn huge profit for some, but is it at the expense of well-being of self, communities and cultures. What appears as an efficient economic idea from one point of view may be detrimental to many other processes in life.

Hold your horses

If smartphone apps are not designed to care for our indispensable time, then we have to be conscious of it when using smartphones. When apps and services treat our time as some industrial resource to be traded, it is not a good idea to be co-opted into the process.

We have bought into this chain of thinking that – time is money – money buys things – things give us pleasure – and that is good life. But each time we change one into other there is a loss. The loss is of time and life. Why not convert time directly into pleasure by living in each moment? Then one can get an hour’s worth of life, for every hour spent.

Doing things quickly and in parallel may please us but it is not necessarily gratifying. When we create distance and delays between responses, we get time to think, to look forward, to immerse and to enjoy what we receive.

The good news is that we haven’t yet gone too far down the road of smartphones. The smartphone addiction can be overcome if we allow the beauty and thrill of living in the moment to reach us. Let us say, we cannot completely live without a smartphone today but we can learn to use it while not surrendering our life. 

There is no shortage of advice or philosophy on how to detach oneself from smartphone addiction and reclaim life. Most suggestions have a few things in common,  such as reduce multi-tasking, be immersed in whatever task is at hand and create delays to increase gratification. Ironically, you may have to go to the internet to look for suggestions. Or you could choose to visit a bookshop to buy a book on it, take it to the woods or cozy sofa, curl up and read.

For every mind-numbing app that we use for convenience – we can add a mindful activity to life outside of smartphone. Take up writing letters with pen and paper, learn hands-on crafts, go for walks. Spend time helping friends (and non-friends), or listen to an entire symphony. Read a book end-to-end or cook dinner twice a week. There is no dearth of activities.

None of this thinking is new. Long before the age of smartphones philosophers, sages and poets have told us about ‘life well lived’. Their suggestions remain relevant despite of technological advances – even more so now. Here is what Henry David Thoreau wrote 160 years back. He tells us why it is important to slow down, to pay attention. He writes in Walden,

  “One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval.”

Let us realize that there is one thing that is so fundamental to us that everything else is valued on it – that is personal time. Let us not squander it. As we enter this wave of smart technologies, let us move the chairs apart. Let us create space for sentences to unfold.

Excerpted from an article by Pradeep Gothoskar