I'm struggling to think of how the Apple Watch -- which is just another smart watch that does nothing that others weren't doing for years before -- is an "Apple innovation."
Manjoo here seems to be channeling David Pogue, whose love of all things Apple and utter ignorance of Android made so many of his articles accidentally hysterical.
8
I agree that Apple and Google have taken a solid first step by providing information. However, as we know from our decades of research on the "psychology of technology," information is only part of the solution. For more about this check out my blog post at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rewired-the-psychology-technolog... which shares some of our recent data using an app that provides similar information on daily usage.
1
We are a stress addicted nation. Our ancient reptilian brain is evolved to track any movement in our environment, as it formerly represented either a predator stalking us or a small animal for food. That is why so many of us grew-up addicted to TV and its constant flashing images. The media scientist Jerry Mander has written about this. Now that commercial greed has over-taken the TV programming, which is nearly 1/3 advertising now, we have shifted to the relatively ad free cable TV/internet/smart phone for our continual movement/stimulation fix, apparently for 11 hours/d., when we throw-in screen work. Why are we so easily addicted to this constant movement? It triggers our stress response; it feels good, just like the next cigarette restores the "feel good" sensation for the smoker. What is little known about the stress response, is that it releases the neurochemicals dopamine and opiates, among others. Unfortunately, not only are these chemical addicting and we go through withdrawal if we stop them, but the stress hormone cortisol is also released in the stress response. And here's the real problem, because elevated cortisol levels are known to be causing all of the "diseases of civilization" that are killing us now. Our traditional clan-living hunter-gatherers have NONE of our diseases and have healthier bodies, as well as equally long lifespans, but without all the expensive medical care our increasing disease load is demanding. Stress R Us
3
This article is timely and important, but one thing I think we need to be sure to emphasize when talking about the perils of excessive screen time is that words like "irresistible" take the responsibility out of the hands (or in this case eyes) of the user. I find it very easy to ignore my phone and rarely use it for more than texting, calls, and emails (and I'm 28 years old). Researchers that talk about phones being "irresistible" give people an excuse to claim that they are powerless to change their behavior, placing the blame on the phone and application developers for their inability to put their phone away and ignore it. I know I'm making a semantic argument here but I think it's important. We should be careful to use words and phrases like "attention grabbing" or "accessible" as opposed to "irresistible" or "consuming" so people are forced to take ownership of their relationship with their devices.
10
I agree entirely with what is said in the article--ideally we would have technology that would be less obtrusive. A watch, connected directly to data, with airbuds would be great. The only difficulty is input--you would need to speak out loud. Even if Apple could get Siri on par with Google Assistant or Alexa, many times the user is in public and would want something less obtrusive than speaking out loud in order to input requests. Tapping on a watch would not be ideal either.
3
Talk about the ways tech has captured our phone time. It's gone further than I imagined. I just got a Fitbit that syncs with my phone and computer. It buzzes on my wrist whenever I get a text. I can read the message, but can't text back.
The problem with this is that our family does group texts. That includes my side and my husband's side. Each side has about 6 people in it. So every time I'm included in at text, my watch buzzes. After awhile it gets annoying. Do I really want to know that my sister in law thinks something's great with a "yes"? Or maybe I will be led down some path of a conversation I want no part of. Luckily I can turn the sync. function off on my watch. But I don't really want to miss something important. So for now I am seeing if I can accept the constant buzzing on my wrist.
So far I have managed to not be tied to my iphone 7 plus. I do like it because it fits nicely into a dedicated part of my purse. I use it to take a picture of our grocery list, make appointments, read news stories, read books, listen to books, or recordings, text, particularly when out and about with others. And I do play 1 game on it, free cell solitaire.
I like that it connects with my laptop through the "cloud" so all my information is synced. I can even get text messages on my laptop.
You have to remember that you control the tech - it does not control you. If it isn't making your life better, walk away from it.
4
"Social media" is a paradox, an oxymoron of sorts.
The perfect "innovation" for fostering a nation of isolated individuals; hence it disempowers true community, which in turn renders the individual powerless.
5
All these "back in my day" commenters. Look, technology is what we make of it. Spending time on a phone is not inherently bad. Online relationships can be just as real as in-person ones.
Phones allow us to be connected to others in ways that were difficult-to-impossible before. I can FaceTime my parents in Texas with my wife and daughter so that they can see and interact with their granddaughter. Is that hour considered screen time?
I can get videos and pictures of my daughter while at work that can provide a pick-me-up on a hard day. I keep in-touch with my friends through long-running message chains. We can all easily share news and interesting videos that otherwise we wouldn't see. I read more news. The entirety of human knowledge is at my fingertips. I have near-instant access to almost every song ever recorded. I can get directions anywhere. I can track my runs and bicycle rides. I can monitor my calorie intake to lose weight. The ways in which a phone improves my life are too numerous to count.
The conversation, at this point, should be about educating kids who grew up in the screen-age about how to responsibly and productively use their screens. Part of that conversation is about the importance of limiting use to a reasonable amount and for responsible purposes. But it should also highlight the ways in which our portable devices can greatly enhance our lives, relationships, and bodies. Because they CAN do all those things.
3
Ugh. What is with "tech" articles in general, NYT's in particular, and Manjoo's in...particularlyticular?...that they need to write in such a passive style to make us feel like powerless "consumers"?
How about stop covering the handcuffed platforms like iPhone and Android (at least as Google and the ISPs demand it like), and cover real computers again, instead of curbstomping the far better desktop over and over? Maybe even cover programming so we can code non-creepy programs for ourselves.
(The only thing I AM watching wrt iPhone is whether it'll indeed join the Macbooks in using USB Type-C as the WSJ has suggested in the past, instead of Lightning. That would establish it as the One True Port for good, short of "maker" gadgets made by people who can't or won't pay USB-IF perhaps, and maybe finally spur USB-C development of non-earbud headphones, graphics cards, etc.)
And spare us the passive heretostayism. The GOP and their FCC friend [un-Fit to Print] Pie leave us powerless online and in computing just fine on their own!
6
Want to avoid Peak Screen? Get a dumber phone and do not buy unlimited text and data. Works like a charm for me and you have more cash for actual live experiences with other humans ... if you are into that sort of thing.
8
As long as talking to Siri or Google Assistant or Alexa -- or even having them present in my home -- means that data on my private life is being streamed, without my permission, back to the corporate overlords, I can make due without any of it. We are foolish if we continue to buy into this stuff without demanding that these corporations are held responsible to protect our privacy and keep their nasty digital hands off our data.
11
I was horrified by the Lego demonstration at the Apple Event. Instead of using their hands building and tearing down little interlocking blocks, these men were staring at a real building that made up 1/3rd of the virtual environment. So compelling as to make whatever the kids had created, boring. Animation and sound accessed only by looking at your 400.00 iPad and your friend had to have one as well.
Give me some twigs and a bucket of sand any day.
8
I recently witnessed a disturbing “sign of the times.” In a neighborhood nail salon, a young woman received a 10 minute back massage, all the while bent over the massage bench texting on her phone.
What other parts of our humanity will be destroyed by our devices?
"Beware the Narcissus Syndrome"
https://medium.com/@jerryiweinstock/postcard-from-the-future-f66b396decb3
4
The secret to making AI more human: make humans more stupid. There's plenty of evidence it's working.
14
I DO NOT HAVE A SMARTPHONE IN ANY FORM. NEVER WILL.
Why? I am severely hearing-impaired. I lost my hearing in one ear and most of it in the other when I was 2 or 3. I am 79 now.
Over my lifetime my vision has subsumed a lot of functions that would ordinarily be served by normal hearing -- I have learned to use my eyes to become super-aware of my surroundings and lipreading to understand speech.
If I focus on that little screen that everybody seems to have, I actually become blind to my surroundings. I cannot afford to do that under any circumstances unless I am home in a safe place; then I use my laptop.
When I moved to NYC over 10 years ago I divested myself of the four vehicles I had in California and rented cars as needed since then. They are all late models crammed with visual dashboard gadgetry, meaning I have to take my eyes off the road to pay attention to them. The dashboard screens are a seriously dangerous distraction. (The only really helpful device is the screen that comes up to give you a direct rear view when you back up.)
I also cannot use any of the voice-activated or voice-announcing information from the car's interior -- and I disable all of those audiovisual features when I can.
If smartphone usage is going into crisis, it's about time. As a pedestrian I have had to become adept at dodging walkers thumbing messages who are concurrently unaware of people and things in their path. Drivers doing that are another matter, and worse.
12
No, the answer to ubiquitous screens is not to have the digital voice assistants record our lives and take over.
I am capable of using my phone for quick tasks without sinking into it for hours. I do read on my phone at times, but I would be reading something else at the time anyway. Some people are still capable of sitting through dinner without checking those things.
Just turn off notifications and check things when you want to, instead of when it beeps at you.
4
Interested in the new Tesla a representative brought the car to our home to test drive. The interior was awkwardly designed in the back seat but that was something we would consider after the test drive. When we asked how to do this or that the rep kept pointing to an enormous screen that replaced the center console. He said "you just tap the screen, select this, then tap that, then scroll through here....." I said -"But I'll be DRIVING" I assumed my teenage daughter in the car would think it was great but she was alarmed and put off as well. The reliance on a screen killed that sale.
14
Thank you for mentioning the carmakers have made vehicles much more annoying and dangerous to interact with. Manufacturers have taken something (smartphone) that should have been completely unlawful to use while driving anyway and incorporated the same distracting interface right in the car itself. Consumers are not clamoring for this interface change nor are they asking for self driving cars either. Smartphones will win over any digital car interface and are just annoying redundant systems. Smartphones already have GPS, traffic, weather, music, etc. and yet car manufacturers think they can build a more compelling experience? I don't think so.
Car makers need to wise up that most people are just looking for just safe, simple, reliable, cost effective, and performance driven vehicles.
26
I am a computer programmer and I find most of the screen interfaces to be frustrating at best/dangerous more often. I am also tired watching people sink into their phones on buses, on the beach, in bars - every social setting possible. The sense of being alone in crowds seems to be getting worse...
24
I don't have a mobile phone and I was a Sprint network deployment program manager. I'm afraid I'll become one of those pedestrians walking obliviously in front of traffic or into someone, or become an annoying self-involved caller oblivious to noise-polluting other's public space. I know the power of the Dark Side.
7
I use a number of screens (both apple and android) but I find the "fun" has a real limit for me. The lack of creativity in apps and what they offer spells the end of my sessions with a phone, pad or desktop. The limits of small devices are maddening and as my level of frustration with getting the info I need goes up, the more likely I am to put the screen down. I think the problem with current technology is that its ultimate focus is to sell me something, that's an old idea I can put down easily.
11
I'm not sure that "irresistible splendors" is the best way to characterize the content to which "screenies" devote most of their phone time. According to the more candid Millennials I have questioned (all of whom have perfected the ability effortlessly to live their entire lives without looking up from their phones, even during long complex conversations), they spend about ten percent of their screen time on practical matters such as texting to gossip, commiserate, arrange meetings, declining voice calls, ghosting people, using Tinder, and the like, and ninety percent alternating between the same four apps: Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook, on which they scroll through the endless posts of their few in-real-life and countless cyberspace friends and internet personalities, and, from time to time, post pics and instant message, but, generally, get lost in a trance-like scrolling search (for connection or recognition or relief or meaning?). Irresistible, for them, somehow, I suppose, but far from spendid.
18
Wouldn't it be just as easy to ask the phone to dial the restaurant? Sure, it might take a minute or two longer to make those reservations, but you're talking to a real person. And that real person might be able to make suggestions and would certainly be able to answer any questions you might have. And that person might just be a friendly, happy person who just might brighten your day a little bit.
We need to stop isolating ourselves and stop rushing to replace human contact with machines.
17
In theory,yes, interacting with humans could be enlightening and entertaining and reaffirming. In reality, many humans are just going through the motions when they answer phones. Some even are told to memorize scripts. Getting through to these droids in training is, quite often, difficult, if not impossible.
I see restaurant reservations as a solved problem (Open Table) that is a small first step in convenient AI.
Having a digital assistant sit on hold for 45 minutes in order to make a doctor's appointment would be a godsend.
Also, if your idea of "human contact" is making a reservation on the phone, I'm afraid you've made some poor choices in life.
Saving me the time it takes to make reservations (and do so much else that's now possible) means that I get to interact with the people I'm already around face-to-face. It's BETTER for human interaction rather than worse.
1
What worries me most about our phones and the content they display is the effect of making us impatient, needing constant stimulation, constant entertainment, to keep us interested. Our ability to focus on - and stay with - longer content articles, or with dry but informative sources, is shortening in length.
I can feel it myself. Even in the Comments section there is a tendency to skip over the longer comments and race through the "one-liners". And that, even though I am one of those writers who uses the entire field most of the time.
I taught high school English and Reading for a few years, and noted with alarm this trend in the kids.
Ironically, the kids that use the internet the most do not have the patience to learn the skills that were needed needed to invent it.
I'm old enough to have composed with a yellow pad and pencil - when "cut and paste" meant that, literally. I feared and resisted writing on a keyboard to a screen, but the ease of the editing capability finally overcame me.
These days, packed high school cafeterias are eerily quiet, and young lovers on campus hold hands with one hand and look at their respective phones with the other.
I hope this effort works, for all our sake's.
35
Well done! We are stress addicts and need constant stimulation to support our endogenous opiate and dopamine addictions. Visual stimulation is smoking-lite on a neurochemical basis, as nicotine releases dopamine and drives that addiction. Din't know stress was addicting? Try sitting quietly in a darkened room for 5 uninterrupted minutes. Can't do it? Stress addicted? What's the problem? Coming quietly behind this feel-good neurochemical addiction is a continuous high cortisol blood/tissue level which is, well, killing us now through all of our "diseases of civilization". Still not a problem? Stress R Us
7
The short sentences (they used to be called sound bites) are now celebrated by twitter. They eliminate all NUANCE that makes language, deep analytical thinking, literature great, and which is vital to instilling empathy. The result of the idolatry of this trend: a nation of lemmings is being educated like pavlovian creatures to serve the interests of...you fill in the rest.
Need I remind you that the present oval office tenant is a master of the vacuous, irrational tweeting messages.
6
Yeah, although small screen usage is rising, it won't find that much bloom if compared with Smartphone's.
1
I was just thinking about how everything seems to have devolved to an app on a screen. (I hate the term APP!) I'm happy to be old enough to still posses the real stuff like amplifiers, radios, mechanical devices that require hand tools of all things.
Thank goodness for real reality...it's sad to see it going away.
And I still wonder what drives people to put a two way A.I. device in their homes and then to think their privacy won't be compromised.
14
Some simple advice. You don't need an app for it.
Get out. Take a walk. Leave your phone at home. Or pack it away if you must.
Meet people's eyes on the street, Look around. Smile. Breathe.
Feels good, doesn't it!?
Don't forget, with tax cuts for the rich and cuts to infrastructure and things like FEMA, longer power outages are going to become the norm, and rescue services are going to be hard to come by. Do a little planning to live without all those machines.
In the 1990s, they didn't exist! Planes and TVs came in about 1950. Honesty, we're losing our touch. This is not what makes America great, being tied to illusion on a small screen.
Practice makes perfect. Get a life!
27
This is typical Farhad Fanboy fare...
If you are going to cover the digital world you need to at least mention Microsoft once in a while, especially when discussing digital assistants. Cortana is the one digital assistant well integrated with an operating system (Windows) that is widespread and used for productivity. Siri (iOS=mobile), Google Assistant (android=mobile) and Alexa are not well integrated in operating systems mainly used for productivity.
Cortana is rapidly improving and I can use it to help me get useful things done at work instead of fobbing of with a smartphone or buying (more) needless articles at amazon...
5
MACHINE DOMINANCE SNEAKING UP ON US: Your perspective is biassed toward anthrocentrism. Actually, the machines are slowly training us to depend on them. This is the first step toward a world of artificial intelligence in which we work for the machines. Slowly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, we are ceding control to inanimate intelligence. Perhaps biochemical incarnation of intelligence is just an interim step in its evolution to a cosmologically networked reality beyond our comprehension....
11
Considering some of the human, very human, bosses I have had a machine might be a change for the better. Unless, of course, they program it to act like X who was the boss from......
2
Any new channel through which a potential consumer/customer may be targeted will be exploited fully. That's how capitalism works, especially in the United States. These new potential devices will not deliver any more free time than dishwashers did when they were new. That's not what they're designed to do.
Your attention, your human consciousness itself, is being stolen at every turn, sometimes in big pieces, sometimes in small ones. Millions of tech designers of many kinds are completely fluent in your weaknesses and how to exploit them (I am one.) The thieves profit tremendously and do not care about you or your community.
Please do everything you can to restore the center of your life to your own personal values and goals, and stop allowing your life to be stolen.
41
Yes. This. It's not just a palpable erosion of real life social connection. We are being relentlessly herded by marketing and consumerism. Only a few years ago internet shopping and connectivity was a choice. Look around: it's now a necessity.
2
"Millions of tech designers of many kinds are completely fluent in your weaknesses and how to exploit them (I am one.)"
A tech designer, or an exploited "consumer"? :)
You don't have to be a creep. Instead of helping the marketing-NOT-tech megacorps, you can help free software projects and push to get CD or whatnot copies of them sold in more places to raise money for you and the other devs.
Just DON'T impose those godawful "mobile" interfaces on your desktop work, kthx. Not having scrollbars or even obvious scrollable areas is an extreme insult to users and generally a stupid fad.
I bought an Apple Watch when it could be untethered from the iphone. It is now my favourite device leading me away from my phone often. Taking calls is awkward unless I wear Bluetooth earphones which I won’t. So my audible calls are kept short and I pay more attention to those around me. Messaging is not easy and the dictation feature is so so, so I have turned off all notifications and just glance at it when I have time. In other words the watch has to run on my time, not on its own demanding schedule. So I stay digitally connected in brief and non intrusive ways and pay much much more attention to the real people around me. And I feel more engaged and enriched as a result. Anything to get us back to face to face relationship building is a good thing.
3
Keep in mind that, notwithstanding seemingly humane software like Screen Time, tech companies' motives are not altruistic. Their objective is to engage with and derive income from as much of people's lives as they possibly can. If the time should come when corporate good intentions are the only thing standing between humanity and a profit-driven version of the Matrix, say bye-bye.
Everyone should have a second-nature understanding of the risks and necessary precautions associated with this technology that otherwise provides tremendous benefit to mankind. There's precedent for that: matches.
12
The Lego app speaks for itself. Need I say anything more?
3
There are questions about whether we are using our phones too much and too mindlessly."
If so, people can answer those questions for themselves. They don't need gurus, experts, or the media.
If they do follow crowds and authorities that mindlessly, then their phones are not the biggest of their problems.
As for "addiction", the authorities said that about television too (and most other developments since).
Of course, the fact that all the touch screen controls in a moving car are unsafe and idiotic is a different matter. And one that should have been foreseen by all those experts.
10
As well as Peak Screen we have also reached Peal Celebrity. Please stop adding new names to the list that I see on my screens.
4
I my phone/laptop/smart TV fairly evenly for three things - reading, watching and listening. One of these doesn't involve looking at a screen, and another is simply a replacement for treeware. Where does the "eleven hour" figure come from? Mine must be quite high when I'm not working at my job that involves minimal computer interaction. However, are you going to say that it would be healthier to start buying magazines, newspapers and books again, and see if I can find somewhere that sells a stand alone MP3 player?
1
I do look forward to being able to interact with technology in more ways that don't require me to stare at my phone or computer so much. It is ostensibly more convenient for me to pay a bill online than for me to walk to the bank/post office, but it still requires 8 minutes of time (go to website, forget password, wait for reset email, remember password, get distracted by a Facebook message, which leads you to a Wikipedia article, go back to the bank website, etc). This should be doable without even needing to glance at a screen.
Maybe one thing is that not all "screen time" is the same. I think due to the fact that historically, screens were for TV, we associate screen time with being zoned out and a little comatose. But it's not clear to me how an hour spent reading a newspaper is different from an hour spent in the new york times app, aside from possible effects on eyesight from the backlight. When I'm programming at work, I'm usually at my most mentally engaged and focused. When I use instagram I basically turn into a narcissistic slug. So I do think that lumping all screen time together might not be the most thoughtful approach.
That said many of our devices are designed nowadays so that, when you're reading the news, you can be interrupted at any point by a notification that someone posted a new cat video or an automated shipping confirmation email. This is a poorly thought out system and should be changed, but it isn't in any way a necessary part of using a phone.
2
Where does it come from ?
From the squad of "Journalists" out there who continuously use the words "We", "Us", & then proceed to tell "Us, "We"
what we do. What we practice. It is laced through this. It is in the the title.
I have been using a Computer since the beginning. For work. For play (No, not for gaming. Ever. Can't think of anything more boring).
A phone - rarely. It's a PHONE for god's sake. Always will be and nothing more. Who in their right mind would watch a good movie on a screen so ridiculously tiny ?
But yes, when you look around, pretty much the entire species IS addicted. At the same time you are being beat over the head with the same old chestnut - The DRUG WAR. Only now it's been re-packaged - OPIODS.
Sigh ... on second thought, I guess you & they will fall for almost anything. Not "Vetted " properly maybe ? Heck - someone here even commented that Cortana is improving rapidly. What a laugh !
2
When I watch old episodes of Friends on Netflix it reminds me of university days in the 90s, when we sat around and talked to one another and came up with crazy ideas. Now they all sit at home alone and do the same thing on Reddit. Boring.
20
It will be interesting to see if they can roll back the genie. All these screens open up seemingly infinite media that renders the old saw "500 channels and nothing to watch" quaint. The biggest difference, the biggest narcotic not really mentioned here, is we are mainly addicted to our 'selves' as we interact with this circus and that was their key 'trick'. Whether it is by phone or watch or implant it is a tough habit to break. The smartest will manage their interactions with all this, or hire others to do it. Mastering our diet of this will probably be as big a factor for health, relationships and success as anything we can do in our lives.
17
"Imagine if, instead of tapping endlessly on apps, you could just tell your AirPods, “Make me dinner reservations at 7” or “Check with my wife’s calendar to see when we can have a date night this week.”
It is Google that is doing and has already demonstrated what you propose, with Google Duplex. Those who have seen it in action say it's uncanny:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/27/17508728/google-duplex-assistant-rese...
Sadly, Apple lost its ability to innovate with the death of Steve Jobs and the company that gave us the personal digital assistant can't even compete with Google and Amazon.
3