Smartphone Addiction Ruin Adolescents

Sadly, the smartphone is made of interesting qualities and components that makes this device highly addictive, especially for adolescents. Studies are being shown to consider the present risks of young kids having addiction and the important psychological causes that arise in the use of a smartphone. Approximately, four hundred ninety middle school students took a survey filling up levels of addiction rates of self-esteem, anxiety, emotional and behavioral problems, as well as poor child-parent communication, according to the Journal of Early Adolescence. In addition, roughly over one hundred twenty-eight (26.6%) of kids were in high risk of smartphone addiction. This millennial society displayed a tremendous amount of terrible levels of emotional and behavioral issues, worse communication with parents, and lower self-esteem.

Notably, through analysis of this issue demonstrated that the harsh addiction of using a smartphone was coupled with aggressive behavior. Through studies Internet exploration became a prominent public health problem around the globe, specifically prevalent in kids (Christakis, 2010). In other words, Millennials have a significant level of Internet addiction that results in risks of suffering from an abundance of negative social and poor academic performance, unstable relationships, and depression that led to people being homeless or commit suicide. Due to the major advancement of technology, Internet addiction wasn’t recognized as the huge issue as the main focal point or cause of worriedness. Simply, since smartphones has many creative features such as; mobility, size, digital assistance, media player, navigation, and accessibility.

A technological device capable of Internet access provides people multiple helpful applications, including creative opportunities to simple contact with people in farther locations. Strikingly, in a developed country such as South Korea was known to have had smartphone usage of more than 50 % stated in Journal of Early Adolescence, exhibiting that 84 % of kids had a smartphone in 2014. Globally smartphones are a necessity for people’s daily lives because of the convenience this device provides for Millennials. More importantly, smartphones allow adolescents to create a digitalized identity in social media and obtain freedom by having relationships with other people in different countries, in which results into a realm of addiction. To also put into account was the fact that this addiction increased motor vehicle risks and immense stress.

Additionally, a smartphone created a gateway for people to cyberbully in social media that opened up an epidemic of discrimination and humiliation.

Relating to studies done in this article the relationship between Internet addiction and aggression was acknowledged. Reason being was because of the malicious behavior associated with online chatting, online pornography, online gambling, and less hours of sleep that contributed to not caring about responsibilities in life. Interestingly enough, “this blue emitted light sends messages to our brain’s clock in which regulates the body’s circadian rhythms that’s controlled by the hypothalamus, making up about 20,000 neurons”, noted by a journalist (Wise, pg 2). These Circadian rhythms impact our body temperature, mental awareness, pain sensitivity, physical strength, and other senses. For most people that don’t know blue light wake us up in the morning, making our body active during the day.

When kids used smartphones at night a decreased amount of melatonin caused the kids to avoid the hormone’s effect of sleepiness. Relying on Internet too much won’t give people the right answers, but if people are willing to think in a logical way then analysis could be done better. Through research smartphones hurt people’s happiness simply by these devices damaging our hearing, posture, and could lead to people susceptible to diseases. To this extent people have suffered from deficiency in eating habits that are linked with mental disorders such as; attention-deficit disorder and dementia. Notably, smartphones draws distinct connections among light exposure at night and the sleeping process that comes to conclusion that this caused people to have an increased risk of prostate and breast cancer

Personal Impact

This article impacted me since the concept of using a smartphone at a young age could lead to relying on technology than to use critical thinking skills, that I could have gotten from my own cognitive skills. A factor that impacted me was the fact that the hypothalamus lying at the base of our brain controls thirst, hunger, emotions, and a gland that contains hormones that gives the hypothalamus control over a lot of body functions. I can use this information to explain how smartphones triggered users to have horrible sleep patterns by the blue wavelengths that hit the back of our eyes causing people to have mental laziness. I regret using smartphones in elementary school because of the loss of sleep I got from this addiction that hindered my social skills. Therefore, by me having this digitalized identity I became more narcissistic and edgy. By and large I started to stop texting and driving in order to prevent injuries, as well as avoiding risk of the cost of my life.

Not only that but to be able to focus on my hand and eye skills without having to use a smartphone to distract me from reality. Notably this article’s information allowed me to use better judgment by not following a technology based fantasy, by not using social media to victimize others in the global world. For the sake of not contributing to the negative practices of using a smartphone, especially against people that suffer from bullying. In addition, there was a survey being filled out by all-boy middle school kids in Gong-ju, a city located in South Korea, students there at a total of 504, the grades ranging from seventh to ninth composed 490 that confessed to smoking and drinking found in the article named Journal of Early Adolescence. Which brings me to conclusion that this statistic impacted me since now I do not use my smartphone as often when I’m around other people or when I’m getting ready to go to bed. Additionally, the Internet forced me to lose focus on academics and physical social interaction that made me less articulate.

This then leads me to worse self-awareness affecting me as a student by having decreased life skills, hiding me from potential success through social evaluation in society. Therefore, I lived a life based off guilt, anxiety, and stress along with other students. For my last point, adolescents such as myself got impacted by experiencing staggering levels of stress due to entertainment based devices and made me subconsciously stay up since of the stimulating induced features such as; ringtones, notifications, and social pressures from other cyber users. However, this article impacted me since people who are considered natural perceptive thinkers or those who act out of emotions tend to have reliability on smartphones as opposed to hard cover texts. Therefore, adolescents don’t have a sense of moderation due to interactive screen applications. Consequently, using the information in the article allowed me to rethink using my phone during the day since this device causes people to avoid paying attention to academics, and knowing that having a smartphone around decreases cognitive abilities to stay focused on an important task.

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