Their societal carnage

Anyone who has lived in the pre-smartphone era has witnessed the amazing mental and societal carnage these devices have created.

Researchers say teens spend on average nine hours a day on their phones! Is anyone surprised that teen suicide, loneliness, depression, and mental problems for these obsessed kids are at their highest ever? This dependency is not just for kids. Studies reveal that semi-absent parents spend more time on their devices than with their own children.

This hand-held addiction has normalized a whole new level of rudeness. Try having a conversation or a meal with a phone junkie. When they’re not shoving their phones in your face to look at their latest photo, meme, joke, or video, they’re constantly checking their phones and often mindlessly tapping away while you and everyone else are ignored. Walk into any business, you’ll frequently find the employee’s phone is more important than customers. Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, they’re hunched over their glowing screens, clutching their precious phones. When not in their hands, they’re attached to a car dashboard, next to a dinner plate, a bar top, or a table. Never out of sight, never more than a hand’s reach away, and constantly checked.

These people have lost their ability to meaningfully interact with others. They’ve become devoid of social skills, conversational skills, writing skills, and cognitive skills. They depend on influencers and social media to tell them what to believe, think, and do. We are becoming a society of self-absorbed brain-atrophied addicts who are oblivious to the world around them as they live their lives in their self-imposed digital prisons.

But like most addicts, they’ll deny they have a problem. These users have become slaves to their phones. And until they fix the problem themselves, or get help, there is no hope for them.

WILL COHEN North Little Rock