Smartphones—The worst invention ever!
Am I crazy, or has anyone else noticed how smartphones really tend to bring out the worst in people? And I am not referring to a single incident. I am talking about something that I come across more or less every single day.
Obliviousness on another level
To be more precise, I am referring to people getting extremely oblivious as soon as they get their phones out. This manifests itself in many ways. In my opinion, the worst is when using their phones to watch clips or listen to music on full volume. People do this without headphones and despite the fact that there are other persons around.
As an example, let’s assume that I visit a venue where people are working or studying in a quite environment. Then it would never even feel like an option for me to start watching YouTube-clips on full volume without headphones.
First of all, doing so is extremely selfish, oblivious and rude! How can people not realize that? When other persons need to concentrate, then you will obviously disturb them if you start making noise with your phone. That should not even be something to contemplate about. Rather, it should go without saying for every human being with a brain that it isn’t appropriate. But unfortunately, this is not the case among many, many people.
How can people not feel uncomfortable in such situations?
Personally, I would feel extremely uncomfortable if I sat watching clips on the phone in an otherwise quite environment. Don’t people realize that they also come across as selfish jerks when they act like that?
What makes it even more provocative is the fact that it is not exactly a sacrifice whatsoever to wear headphones. But no, these self-entitled, oblivious beings can apparently not be bothered to put in their headphones in their ears. Them watching some nonsense on TikTok is apparently more important than what everyone else in the venue is doing.
If this was something that I came across very occasionally, then it would be one thing. But the fact is that I face this 99% of the times when I decide to not work from home. There’s been times when I have had to confront at least one person a day for several weeks.
I’ve even had an incident where a man started playing mobile games on high volume on a night-bus. This happened in Cambodia, while people were sleeping around him. In fact, he woke me up, and he then seemed really surprised when I confronted him. How can it come as a surprise that you are waking people up when you use your phone like that? It is so disrespectful that I get angry just thinking about it!
Yelling on their smartphones for hours
The same goes for people talking on their phones, more or less yelling for hours, when around others. And we are not talking about emergency calls that could be the difference between life and death. We are talking about people talking nonsense with their friends.
The man on the plane
Let me give you one of many examples. A few years ago I was on a plane ready to take off from Vientiane to Bangkok. A few rows ahead of me there was a man talking on his phone and being extremely loud. Since I wasn’t in a mood to confront him, I let it go. We were about to take off, so I knew that he would be told to stop by the stewardess.
However, after being told off, he instead started watching clips on full volume. He seemed to be in some state of hypnosis, because he was the only one making noise like that. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit. He seemed to be completely unaware of it.
Once we had taken off, the seatbelt-signs were turned on, meaning I was not allowed to stand up. I therefore was unable to confront him right away. While waiting for the signs to be turned off, I started getting extremely annoyed. This was an early morning flight, so people were tired and tried to sleep. That did not seem to matter to him though.
Once the seatbelt-sign was finally switched off, I jumped out of my seat and went over to confront him. I told him something like “Excuse me, do you mind using headphones? Just because you enjoy watching clips doesn’t mean that the whole plane want to listen to them. And I shouldn’t even have to tell you about this, it should be obvious”.
To his credit, he did not argue like many other people do, but said sorry and put on his headphones. But, once again, I should not even have had to tell him off. And for Christ’s sake, if you have your headphones just beside you, why not use them?
A global mass psychosis caused by smartphones
It’s really as if people lose all their manners and consideration for others once they get on their phones. And it is not as if this is something that is restricted to teenagers and other young people. On the contrary, in the majority of cases the people partaking in this bizarre behavior are adults, even senior-citizens. It is really like some sort of mass psychosis.
I did obviously not expect to be hailed as a hero for telling the man off. However, when walking back to my seat, some people looked at me as if I was the one misbehaving. This is also common, meaning the feeling that I am seen as the bad person for confronting individuals like that.
It is such a huge collective failure for humanity that things like this needs to be regulated. Common sense should be enough to make people realize that they are acting inappropriate, but apparently it isn’t. Therefore, regulation seems to be the only solution, something which more and more people in power seem to finally understand.
We can take London as an example. There, passengers are banned from singing or playing music out loud on public transport. Transport for London have even launched a campaign urging people to use headphones when using their phones. Well done London, that’s the way to deal with this mental pandemic! I hope that more countries and cities will soon follow suit.
Despite this, my feelings are still mixed regarding the issue. That’s because I find it downright scary that so many people seem to have a complete lack of common sense. It’s the same as if they would need to be reminded not to do even the most obviously inappropriate things. Two examples are urinating on the seats or spitting at other people.
Are there more to those screens than we are being told?
Not to go too far down the wormhole, but this kind of bizarre behavior makes me suspect that there are more to those effing phone screens than we realize. And some people seem to be more sensitive to them than others.
For those of you who think that it is a crazy statement, why don’t you let a baby watch a video or a game being played on your smartphone? I remember when my oldest niece was a baby, when at times she would be crying hysterically. There was no way to stop her, apart from giving her access to a smartphone or pad. Then she stopped crying immediately, and instead focused so intensely on the screen that it seemed as if she was getting hypnotized.
Do smartphones have a similar effect on older kids, teenagers, adults and senior citizens, albeit in a more discreet way? I can of course not tell for sure, but it does certainly seem like a possibility. Maybe it is a way for the manufacturers to make people addicted to their phones? That would certainly be good for their businesses.
The extreme speed at which smartphones have spread
Another suspicious fact is the enormous speed at which smartphones have become a more or less essential part of life in nearly every country around the world. It is a fact that smartphones had started spreading at unprecedented speed already back in 2012. In today’s world, the amount of smartphones on planet Earth is estimated to be around 7,21 billions. To put that in perspective, it is a number which equates to 90% of the global population.
Having visited many different parts of the world, I’ve noticed a common theme in more or less every country that are classified as 2nd or 3rd world countries. I am referring to the fact that even in the most remote, poverty stricken areas, people who seemed to struggle to make ends meat would still have access to smartphones.
Now I am speculating again, but could the spread of smartphones be a way for states to keep track of their citizens? Of course I don’t know for sure, but I do indeed find it suspicious.
Having a smartphone is a requirement
Furthermore, despite truly despising those bloody devices, it is not possible to get by without a smartphone for the majority of people. Me myself do for example need a smartphone to access various financial services, log in to other vital services offered by various government authorities, and in some cases even to be able to do my job.
I honestly miss the days when phones were just phones, meaning devices that were only used for calling and texting. People have become so obsessed with their smartphones that the phones in many ways function as an extra body-part, and something that we can’t survive without.
In my opinion, this is far from a positive development, but rather one that allows for several sinister scenarios. I do not have a clue how to stop this downward spiral. All I know is that one good first step would be for people to not let themselves and their behaviors be controlled by electric devices, turning them into selfish, oblivious jerks. Once, or rather if, humanity manage to do that, further actions could then hopefully be taken in order to stop this global pandemic of the mind!