Influence of Smartphones Frequent Use on College Students

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Influence of Smartphones Frequent Use on College Students
Advances in technology have influenced people’s lives in different ways. Currently, almost everyone in colleges now use mobile phones. They use these smartphones to access social media, study, play games or do other things. One of the common issues surrounding the frequent use of smartphones is increased dependence often leading to smartphone addiction. This paper presents an argument that USC students should change their smartphone habits. Students have been observed to be always using their smartphones a lot in their school life. Some are not even bothered to carry their textbooks to school while studying. They prefer their phones as compared to the textbooks and this greatly influences their ability to focus. There are also numerous effects associated with frequent smartphone usage as indicated below.
One of the major concerns surrounding frequent smartphone us is its negative effects on our health. This is due to excessive addiction to playing mobile phones and chatting with friends leading to accidents and depression. In another research carried out by Dr. Alt Miller (2017), he notes, “Teenagers who visit social networking sites daily but see their friends less frequently are more likely to agree with the sentiment “A lot of times I feel lonely” Loneliness in this case refers to the feeling of depression among the frequent smartphone users. That number went up to nearly half among teens who used devices for five or more hours a day. Teenagers who used social media on a daily basis were 13 percent more likely to say they felt depressed than were peers who did not use it every day (Chen page2). Another negative effects of smartphone use is deprivation of sleep. Over 60% of 18 to 29 year olds report sleeping with their smartphones in their beds. Hearing the beeps and pings of constant updates all night has a deleterious effect on sleep. The number of teens who are sleep-deprived has grown rapidly along with increases in smartphone use: 57% more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991. Other researchers associate the aspect of sleep deprivation with the blue light produced by the smartphones. Twenge writes, “There’s blue light shining into your eyes and preventing you from feeling tired,” she says. “They’re also psychologically stimulating, and that can lead to you turning your thoughts over and over” (Chen, 2017)
Researchers have also indicated that smartphones can make you dumber. A study carried out on students indicates that close proximity with the smartphones during study hinders the working of the brain. Even though those students reported afterwards that they hadn’t even been thinking about their phones during the tests. It seems that the very pro...