Would You Rather Be Blind For 24 Hours Or Without Your Phone For A Week
When scrolling through the entire internet looking for stories I came across this article in the BBC today
(bbc)–Almost a quarter of young people are so dependent on their smartphones that it becomes like an addiction, suggests research by psychiatrists.
The study, from King’s College London, says such addictive behaviour means that people become “panicky” or “upset” if they are denied constant access.
The youngsters also cannot control the amount of time they spend on the phone.
The study warns that such addictions have “serious consequences” for mental health.
The research, published in BMC Psychiatry, analysed 41 studies involving 42,000 young people in an investigation into “problematic smartphone usage”.
The study found 23% had behaviour that was consistent with an addiction – such as anxiety over not being able to use their phone, not being able to moderate the time spent and using mobiles so much that it was detrimental to other activities.
TL;DR…young people are addicted to their phones and have legitimate anxiety when they don’t have access to their phone blah blah blah. No fucking shit. I don’t even like people touching my phone. It’s the worst. I don’t have anything incriminating or embarassing on my phone with the exception of an unusual amount of pictures of my dog and still when I have to pass my phone to my girlfriend to enter in her own postmates order I feel like I am going to puke even though I know nothing could possibly go wrong. And that is just for like 5 minutes at a time. I am not being “denied constant access” like the study says. It’s just a momentary pause.
It got me to thinking…
People are saying they’d go on vacation or call in sick or whatever. No. You have to be a functioning adult human in this scenario.
At the time of this writing we are 1500+ votes in and the no phone people have it. No phone for a WEEK coming in at Jared Carrabis fastball numbers…73%. That’s a landslide. That is INSANE.
One day of being blind would be a walk in the park compared to being without your phone. I did a sensory deprivation tank last week at Float Sixty Chicago. That’s what I imagine being blind is like. You can’t see anything. You don’t know where you are. And you know what…it was nice. Kind of relaxing. People pay good money to be able to do that for an hour at a time. Obviously you can’t just lay around all day, like I said above, but when you’re blind people will do anything for you. You get to have a genius dog tell you where to walk. I assume people will bring you food, but even if you don’t get food well I personally have enough fat reserves to spend 24 hours without eating.
The No-Phone people keep saying this
I assume these people have never had a real job. Sure, in theory it would nice to be off the grid for awhile, but that doesn’t exist. Imagine you’ve got a boss, customers, etc. The world is flying by and you can’t talk to anyone, you can’t respond to emails in real time, you can’t do anything. A full week…you might get fired for that. If your boss walks in and says “hey did you see my email” a legitimate excuse would be “no I didn’t because I am fucking BLIND! I didn’t see anything yesterday”. If you walk in and say “sorry, I didn’t have a phone for a week” well tough shit. Nobody cares.
Also, imagine going to work every day on the train without a phone. Or working out. Or sitting at the bar without a phone. What are you going to do…talk to people? FUCK that. And how are you going to get anywhere? They don’t even make maps anymore. That is a fact. If you have an appointment somewhere you have a better chance of finding your way there as a blind guy with a smartphone while you’re riding your German Shepherd than trying to get there on your own using the stars to navigate. You can’t order ubers without a phone and I think I’d rather be blind for a day than ride in a cab too. There is NO way people should choose sight over their phone. I can not believe almost 3/4ths of the population would vote be without their phone instead of being waited on hand and foot, getting a dog, and having the best excuse ever even if just for a day.