The ubiquitous smartphone has a negative side to it. Its overuse can lead to poor posture, Digital Dementia which increases the risk of Alzheimer’s 

IInside the technologically advanced era, the dark part of mobile technology in the form of smartphones, mobile tablets, and notebooks, is making our lives better than ever before. It’s been almost three years since the COVID-19 pandemic is over and what has gradually been noticed is the exponential increase in the usage of smartphones, especially among children in the age group of 10-15 years. Never have we been able to share so much with friends and family as we can today, and that is in great part possible due to mobile technology.

Without mobile devices and the technology behind them, participation in social networking would never have grown as much as it has today. Smartphones have formed an integral part of our lives, but what effect does this scrolling have on our brains is the big question. Is the use of smartphones making us dumber or wiser?.Smartphones have affected our thought processes to a great extent.

According to a research study, it was found that cognitive capacity (the process of acquiring and applying knowledge through thoughts, experiences, and the senses) was significantly reduced whenever a smartphone is within reach, even when it is switched off. Continuous scrolling on various applications and keeping a check on messages now and then increase the level of anxiety making the person tired and unwilling to engage in any sort of activity.

Not only this, but the excessive usage of smartphones may also prove to be harmful to children whose brains are not fully developed. The use of smartphones has derailed children's development. Today a ten-year-old is not able to write properly nor can solve a simple mathematical question only because the time spent on a smartphone is so much that physical handwriting and concept clarity does not matter at all. Not only this, the excessive usage has even made them anti-social.

In this technologically advanced world, the use of smartphones makes us smart as information is shared or exchanged quickly. With the help of a smartphone, anything is possible from retrieving information around the world to onsite delivery of groceries and food, from opening of bank accounts to sanctioning of loans, from hotel and cabs bookings to capturing memories in inbuilt high megapixels cameras.

The dependency on smartphones has made it difficult for the common man to handle any task or think of a situation without them. With smartphones being so effective and efficient, there is no denying the fact that they have made our lives easier, but at the same time ample usage has even led to poor posture, and inability to recall memories leading to Digital Dementia which ultimately increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in adulthood.

The main purpose of introducing smartphones was to make work for consumers easy and smarter. Smartphones today are not just a phone, rather it’s a tool to make you smart in almost all walks of life. Children with a disorder such as autism are using mobile tablets which in turn is helping them to focus and communicate with those around them. Patients of all ages are using mobile devices to communicate with healthcare providers and loved ones as they never could before.

The excessive usage of smartphones has even led people to forget numerous things so that there has been an adverse impact on people’s memory. The traditional methods of maintaining contact records in the diaries or searching for contacts in the telephone directory helped people in remembering their contacts and keeping their memories sharp, but today people have become so dependent on smartphones that they tend to forget so many things. Also, smartphones have been incorporated with numerous additional features like social networking applications, online gaming, web surfing, and many more resulting in a mindlessly occupied time of people and thereby making the lives of individuals harder to live without them.

As per research, it has been found that in Northern America, the main reason for mental illness and distress is the excessive use of social media and smartphones by adolescents and children. Instead of something productive, people are wasting their precious time as they do not know what needs to be done. The smart way of using a smartphone is to understand how to reduce the bad while focusing on the good. As time progresses, people may not be able to live without their smartphones, but steps can be initiated to reduce the negative effects of this addiction. Smartphones can be better defined as a tool that has allowed individuals to connect with the world instantly. On one hand, they force innovation to follow people wherever they go and on the other hand, they amplify the negative habits entering people’s lives. Understanding how to reduce the bad while focusing on the good is the smart way of using a smartphone.

(The author is a teacher at a reputed school in Delhi)