The negative impact smartphones are making on today's society

 Do you own a smartphone? If so, how much time do you spend on it? Smartphones are constantly being used throughout the day to make calls, text, check emails, and many other things. As technology grows we find that smartphones are having a negative impact on today’s society. Although we use smartphones on an everyday basis we need to learn how to disconnect when driving, spending time with family, and after leaving work.

Texting and driving is one of the worst negative impacts that smartphones make on today’s society. A person who texts while driving is twenty-three times more likely to get into a car accident than someone who is not texting. That puts that person’s life and other people’s lives at an extreme high risk. In 2009, a reported 448,000 people were injured due to caraccidents that involved distracted driving. (stoptextsstopwreks.org) Almost everyone in today’s society now owns a smartphone. Therefore, 60 percent of all people use their smartphone while they are driving. These small devices are a huge distraction to someone that is behind the wheel. Which causes distracted driving to be the number one killer of American teens. Consequently, texting while driving causes 1,600,000 accidents per year, and nearly eleven teens die every day. As a result thirty nine states including D.C. now have laws that prohibit all drivers from being able to text. Also there are apps used forAndroid and Blackberry phones that have a free anti-texting and driving mobileapp to prevent people from texting. (textinganddrivingsafety.com) Society is trying to come up with new ways to prevent texting and driving from happening because they see how much damage it is causing. If people would put their phones down and pay attention to the road there would be less injures, less accidents, and less deaths.

Smartphones are causing a strain on many relationships including families. Families can’t sit down and have a meal together with a nice conversation because everyone is disconnected. One might be on the internet, playing a game, texting or checking their email while at the table not even engaging in the table conversation. They are all physically present, but mentally they are not because smartphones create a whole other world for some people. With these smartphones no one feels alone, they have everything they need with just one touch. Therefore, people get very attached to this device because unlike the television or the computer the smartphone is able to follow people everywhere they go. People can be connected with other people all hours of the day from friends to family and business colleagues. However, if family members would pay attention to each other as much as they did there smartphone they wouldn’t be disconnected. Nonetheless, they are not so useful when it comes down to being able to have a real and meaningful conversation with someone. These devices now limit people from communicating because people are used to having time to figure out what to say. When people are so used to having there smartphone all the time it may be difficult to disconnect, but the rewards of disconnecting and engaging with family are worth it.
As if having a job isn’t hard enough at times it now follows people home, which is a place for them to unwind, and relax at the end of the day. That is now being interfered with due to emails, texts, or phone calls coming in. This adds more stress to employees than ever before because they use to be able to escape it. It also means more work for them, maybe without the pay. Businesses use this device for communication to their employees because they are more accessible. Many bosses expect employees to be reachable after they leave the workplace. This could interrupt family time, relaxation or maybe even vacation. What some bosses may not realize is that this could dissatisfy the employee therefore they could not be performing up to the needs necessary of the business. As a result this could be hurting the business instead of helping it to grow and prosper like every business owner wants. Extra stress could also affect the employee’s marriage or relationship with their children. They may miss important events of their children’s life because of having to deal with work related issues. Technology can be a great resource for the business world because it makes productivity so much faster but there needs to be a way to leave work at the workplace. If business owners want to thrive and make it in this economy then they also need to think about the needs of their employees as well as their business.

Technology definitely has its perks but it also has its downfalls. It basically runs our whole world because people have become so attached to this device. If people could learn how to leave it alone while driving and while spending time with family and friends then maybe the advantages of technology would outweigh the bad. A wise man named Steve Wozniak once said,“All of a sudden, we’ve lost a lot of control,’ he said. ‘We can’t turn off our internet; we can’t turn off our smartphones; we can’t turn off our computers. You used to ask a smart person a question. Now, who do you ask? It starts with g-o, and it’s not God…” (goodreads.com)