Exaggeration to say smartphone use is dependency

PEOPLE’S SMARTPHONE dependency should not be exaggerated, but people should be aware of the negative influences of using their devices too much. China Youth Daily comments:

According to a report on smartphone use among college students, issued by Chinese higher education management data provider MyCOS recently, more than 80 percent of college students said they were dependent on their phones. On average, college students spend more than 5 hours a day on their smartphones, and 13 percent of college students use their devices more than nine hours a day.

The report stoked concerns that college students had a smartphone dependency.

But the so-called smartphone dependency lacks a scientific definition. And the report’s conclusion that college students have a smartphone dependency based on the finding that more than 80 percent of them use their phones more than 5 hours every day is groundless and unconvincing.

In the mobile internet era, smartphones play an increasingly important role in people's daily lives. The function of smartphones is not only communication as used to be the case. Nowadays, people also use their smartphones to make payments, hail a cab, do work and for entertainment.

It seems people can hardly do without their smartphones. And from this perspective, the whole of society is dependent on smartphones.

It is not scientific to determine whether people are dependent on smartphones simply based on the amount of time they use them. Intervention would be necessary if people were obsessed with their smartphones while ignoring normal life. But for most people that is not the case, it is simply that smartphones have become an indispensible part of their lives.