America’s Hot Relationship with Technology

According to a recent study, the majority of Americans can’t go an hour without picking up their mobile devices and reading email, texting, or Facebooking. On the road, 24 percent of drivers periodically glance down at their screens instead of paying attention to traffic.This article explains you about America’s Hot Relationship with Technology.

During meals, 30 percent have no qualms about diverting their gaze from their tablemates to the screens of their Android phones. Americans are in a hot-to-trot relationship with technology. Like obsessive lovers, many can’t tear themselves away from their phones long enough to grant simple human courtesies and pay attention to road signs. The results of this torrid love affair are mixed. While some people say mobile technology has boosted their overall happiness, others admit that their safety, security, and productivity have languished because of their cell phones.

 Cell Phone Ownership On the Rise

Once upon a time, cell phones were popular. Today, they’re indispensable. Pew Research Center reports that cell phone ownership skyrocketed from 65 percent in 2004 to 91 percent in 2013. People from all demographics have embraced the technology, including senior citizens, rural dwellers, and the undereducated. According to the research center, cell phones are the “most quickly adopted consumer technology in the history of the world.”

Beds, Bathrooms, and Beyond

People don’t reserve cell phone activity for their living rooms alone. They’re texting in cars, chatting in bathroom stalls, even surfing in bed. Years ago, a person’s bedroom was meant mostly for sleeping. Nowadays, many folks can’t fall into dreamland unless they check their email first. They rise in the middle of the night just to read their texts and wake in the morning to the buzzing of their mobile alarms.

At least one entrepreneurial company has picked up on this obsessive new trend: The Smart Phone Sleeper is a bedside, hands-free phone holder that allows consumers to surf and talk in bed. For $34.95, friends can even watch one another sleep if they want to.The bedroom isn’t the only place where cellular activity happens. “Toilet texting” is a dirty little secret many people prefer to hide. “Bathroom browsing,” where a person peruses the Internet in the john, and “Bathroom buying,” where a person seals online purchase deals while indisposed, are also growing trends.

 Phone Mania Trumps Sex

The Huffington Post recently reported a study in which 73 percent of Americans admitted they would feel “panicked” if they lost their phone. This finding is significant, especially in the eyes of those who walked the earth before droid phones existed. After all, if the human race survived without mobile technology for thousands of years, why should its absence create such a sense of life-or-death urgency today?

Here’s why: Priorities have changed. A recent poll by Harris Interactive found that Americans consider their phones to be more important than sex. This jaw-dropping factoid speaks volumes about the way technology has rearranged people’s priorities. Sex supposedly sits at foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which begs the question: Are Americans addicted to their cell phones?

 Cell Phone Addiction

Do people love cell phones because they’re cool pieces of machinery, or do they love them because they can’t live without them? Addiction comes in many forms. A person who thinks they might be addicted to their phone should ask the following questions:

• Do I suffer withdrawal symptoms without my phone?
• Am I spending more time on my phone now than ever before?
• Could I cut back if I wanted to?
• Have I give up other activities I enjoy in favor of cellular use?
• Do I use my phone in spite of negative consequences?

Answering ‘yes’ to any of these questions could indicate an addiction. And according to researchers like Dr. Mark Griffiths, a person can become addicted to just about anything.Cell phones are a fact of life.  They’re everywhere, in everybody’s pocket, and they’re not going away any time soon. Mobile devices have changed how we interact, wreaked havoc on our priorities, and quite possibly inflicted us with a new type of addiction. Still, we love them, so we’d better figure out how to use them without putting too much of our “real” lives on the back burner.