Your Life Through the “Three Screen Effect”

6 ways your phone is changing you and 5 moves to strike a balance

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They are everywhere. Hardly a moment ever passes without you having to acknowledge their omnipresence.

So, what was life like in the days before the advent of our shining gadgets?

So much is our techno-gadget-dependence total that some of us will get into panic-mood attacks whenever we get untethered from them. Because, like shadows, these devices are ever before our eyes — until death, do us part.

Let’s face it. You won’t go far before you need to resort to any of these devices. This is the case even in remote areas with minimal or zero digital connectivity.

Less than two decades ago, satellite communication was the only available but very expensive option. Those were the days of Iridium Satelite communication, Thuraya among many others. Back then, only corporations and the wealthy could afford those (now) ancient devices and the services they afforded.

As Dr. Os Guinness writes, ours is “the age of the computer and the internet or the “triple screen effect” of living half of our daily lives before the modern trinity of the Television screen, the computer screen and the screen on our mobile phone or handheld devices.”

Furthermore, these information technology gadgets drive the global economic system — almost instant in speed and global in reach, and scope.

Try as you may, you cannot escape the influence of living on the planet of the “three screen effect.” Yes, even if you want to.

Depending on how we use them, these devices are changing our lives and attitudes.

Author Tony Reinke detailed powerful ways our mobile phones are changing us for good or bad. In his book, 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, he highlighted how we can develop healthy habits in our frenetic paced digital age.

He said, “Unknown to me at the time I was unboxing my first iPhone, Steve Jobs was actively shielding his children from his digital machines”.

We don’t know what our smartphones are doing to us, but we are being changed, that much is clear. ~ Tony Reinke

The group, Alcoholics Anonymous has helped recovered many alcoholics. The first of their 12 rule program is, “We admitted we were powerless before alcohol.”

In like manner, the first step to overcoming our vice of smartphone addiction is to admit to it. To various degrees, many of us need to get cured of our compulsive addiction to our shimmering mobile candy-bars.

All the twelve points identified by Tonny Reinke’s resonate well. Here, I will highlight only 6 of them.

6 Ways Your Phone is Changing You

1. Your attention focus diminishes as you get addicted to constant distractions.
2. You neglect or relegate live healthy interactions with your loved ones and friends to the background.
3. Aliteracy - the unintended consequences of overabundance. The flip side of our infotainment overload is that many people lose their literacy or become aliterate. Too much of a good thing can kill you. Howbeit so slowly, you don’t even notice it.
4. Selfishness and harshness are often direct sour fruits of over preoccupation with our mobile devices. Do you remember the cartoon of people who were rushing to take pictures of a drowning man instead of throwing him a lifeline? Well, we should let humanity reigns over our crave for clicks.
5. Yielding to allures of destructive, comfortable secret vices. Appropriately used, technology enhances our lives — more efficient, effective, and more productive. Immaturity and undisciplined use can turn them into counter-productive Weapons of Mass Distraction (Os Guinness)
6. Less inclination to acts of kindness (maybe). Unbridled use of smartphones at night reduces the number of sleep hours. My friend Boateng Sekyere convincingly writes here that people who did not sleep well last night are less likely to reach out to help others today. It won’t be out of place to opine that people addicted to their phones are less likely to render acts of kindness to those in need.

The internet abounds with tools and information on how to use these devices gainfully. But to know and not to do what you know is to not know. At home, I almost do not know how to operate the TV with the remote controller.

These days, I do most of my computing (for example, writing this piece) on my tab. Also, I am guilty of doing most of my reading on my Amazon Kindle or my e-book app.

Totalitarian regimes limit their citizens' access to information. But for many of us, access to information is so much that the relevant easily gets drowned out in the flood of distracting digital tidbits.

5 ways to keep from digitally “amusing yourself to death”

1. Switch off distracting phone notifications. You may think you won’t be able to live without your notifications set to ON. Yes, you can. The alternative is to set your notifications to come up at specific times for specific apps.
2. Use screen-time tracking apps to get pictures of how much time you spend on your phone. This will help you know how well you are using these devices. Such an audit will also help you cut unnecessary and time wasting apps. A pictorial on this page shows the average daily time spent on social media for some countries. Check it out and correct your ways if you need to.
3. Let your phone read to you while you are driving or doing long commutes. Text to voice option is available on Amazon Kindle, iPhone and many Android e-book apps. You can also have Audiobook versions of your recent or favorite books on your device. Talk of killing two birds with one stone.
4. Audit your devices installed apps list. Disable or uninstall apps you rarely use or those that are occupying space. You will cut distractions and get better phone performance. Also, your data fees get leaner while you conserve the battery up-time and life.
5. Be intentional in your phone usage. It is not enough to realize your need to cut down on your phone screen-time. To this end, set goals and track your progress and success with Android’s Digital Well Being app For me, I wish I could write more than I read. My most used app is Moon Reader Pro. To save you from unmerited guilt-trip, know that background running apps max-up your screen up-time.

Now, go and check yourself now.

Your Takeaways

6 ways your smartphones is changing you (If you allow it).

1. Reduced attention focus.
2. Neglect of healthy live interactions with our loved ones.
3. Illiteracy and aliteracy.
4. Selfishness, harshness, and lack of empathy.
5. Surrendering to destructive seemingly harmless secret vices.
6. Less inclination to acts of kindness

These 5 steps can help you regain balance

1. Switch off distracting phone notifications.
2. Use screen-time tracking apps.
3. Let your phone read to you while you are driving.
4. Regularly audit your devices installed apps list.
5. Be intentional in your phone usage.

Thank you for reading.

Sources

• Copyright by ©Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, Crossway, 2017
• Copyright by ©Os Guinness, Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization, Intervasity Press, 2016
• Copyright by ©Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (20th Anniversary Edition), Penguin Group, 2005

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