The Dark Side of Cellphone Addiction

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The Dark Side of Cell phone Addiction
Kassandra Beltran
International Language Academy of Canada
Pathway III
Sara Salavatian
February 9,2023

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The Dark Side of Cellphone Addiction
Have you ever thought about how much time you spend on your cell phone?
“54% of US teens say they spend too much time on their cell phones, and two thirds of
parents express concern about their teens' screen time. But parents face their own
device-related distraction challenges” (Jiang, 2018). Since the invention of cell phones,
people have not stopped using them, since phones has the capacity to have applications
that allow the person to immediately access the Internet, as well as to communicate with
someone in a matter of seconds, which is essential for day to day, but it directly affects
many areas of people's lives. Although the use of cell phones is very beneficial most of
the time, its constant usage has the potential to negatively affect vital areas of people's
lives because it causes people to lose concentration at work and isolate themselves from
other people.
Some may argue that majority of the time, resorted to a mobile phone is really
advantageous such as keeping in touch with their loved ones as well as known about the
news around them. Despite the fact the excessive use of cell phones has innumerable
advantages that help human beings in their daily lives, the constant need to use it brings
with it disadvantages that can counterproductively affect people's lives in areas that
determine a someone’s well-being in the future. In fact, some studies have shown that
according to managers that employees utilize their personal phones much too often,
around 70% of American workers look down at their phones while they are at work, this
distracted behavior at work can have serious repercussions, including an unsatisfactory
productivity or even firing (Poppick, 2016). What this means is that a large proportion
of workers use their cell phones instead of completing their assigned responsibilities,
often without realizing that doing so may cause them to become distracted and

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potentially leave unfinished work. In this way they risk losing their job if they do not
achieve the performance and efficiency that your superior is looking for. By
maintaining constant attention to the cell phone, people can develop a harmful
dependency on it, that can negatively impact crucial fields of someone’s life.
One of the primary reasons why smartphones negatively impact people's life in
important ways is because it leads employees to lose their concentration and reduce
their productivity at work. For example, some employees were asked about the usage of
smartphones inside working schedule, they all agreed that using personal technology
(such as their own phones) at work reduces organizational productivity. Numerous
people said that also increases the danger of harm and unintentional destruction of
company property (especially in industrial settings). Each year, more businesses either
outright forbid employees from using mobile phones while at work or put policies and
procedures in place to limit their usage in the office, warehouse, on the job site, or on
the production line (Monks, 2019). Clearly, this example demonstrates that the
employees themselves, through a consensus, confirm that using the cell phone during
work provoke workers to be distracted, lose their concentration, causing their
productivity to decrease, and even doing harm to the business; because of that
companies started to develop specific regulations in order to eradicate those aspects that
negatively affect their work, such measures have the purpose to require employees to
use their phones in a restricted manner within the company's premises in order to
eliminate these characteristics that have a bad impact on their ability to perform their
jobs. There is a relationship between addiction to cell phones and loss of concentration
during work, which affects and hinders the fulfillment of the respective work task, also
has serious consequences in areas like employment that can affect a person's future
since this can result in dismissal.

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Furthermore, isolation is one of the consequences that many people with this
problem struggles with since it has a strong impact on the social scope of people. As can
be seen in this study, in a survey of 135 San Francisco State students, professors Pepper
and Harvey discovered that students who used their phones more frequently reported
greater levels of feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression and both agreed that
loneliness is partially a result of exchanging face to face contact for a medium that does
not allow for the interpretation of body language (Viani, 2018). In other words, they
showed how there is effectively a cause and effect relationship between those who use
their cell phones for a long time and the negative effects that this entails, such as
isolation, because the constant use of these devices does not allow any physical
interaction with the other person. Though smartphone has numerous benefits and offers
the general public a wide range of utilities people eventually reach the point where they
focus so much on make use of this item that they lose interest in creating new
relationships that do not involve these devices and they end up isolating themselves
from human interaction that occurs through physical contact.
To conclude, even though most of the time using a mobile phone is good, its
frequent use can negatively impact important aspects of people's lives, since it makes
them less able to concentrate at work and distance themselves from others. It is key to
keep in mind that nothing in excess ends up being good and that applies to most aspects,
cell phones can be considered one of the most useful and necessary creations for
humans, but the truth is that that does not mean that it does not count with certain
disadvantages that can negatively affect a person's life if they do not try to find a
balance in terms of the amount of time spent on the device, because consequences such
as dismissal and isolation can make the reality of a person change completely and not
for the better.

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References
Jiang, J. (2018). How Teens and Parents Navigate Screen Time and Device Distractions.
Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/08/22/how-
teens-and-parents-navigate-screen-time-and-device-distractions/
Monks, M. (2019). How Cell Phones Affect Your Productivity (And Safety) At Work.
91.7 WVXU News, https://www.wvxu.org/technology/2019-07-29/how-cell-
phones-affect-your-productivity-and-safety-at-work
Poppick, S. (2016). These are the top workplace productivity killers. CNBC,
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/09/top-distractions-at-work-and-how-to-
increase-productivity.html
Viani, L. (2018). Digital addiction increases loneliness, anxiety and depression.
Strategic Marketing and Communication, https://news.sfsu.edu/archive/news-
story/digital-addiction-increases-loneliness-anxiety-and-depression.html