January 22

Cellphones are extremely addictive. We constantly feel the need to respond to our friend’s texts and see what someone posted on social media. I personally am on my phone for around 2 hours a day. While this seems like a lot, it is very little compared to the vast majority of people. I took an online quiz to see just how addicted I was, and I scored a 70 which placed me in the moderate nomophobia category. In Nicholas Carr’s article, “How Smartphones Hijack our Minds,” he states that more than half of iPhone users couldn’t imagine life without their phone. I believe that if the smartphone was never invented, our world as a whole would be better off. Kids wouldn’t have to constantly feel threatened by others through social media. They wouldn’t be so easily distracted in school, and drunk driving would still be the leading cause of fatal car crashes. While I disagree with Author Carr that phones “hijack” our minds, I do believe that they do contribute a large portion into our decision making and actions. My results from the quiz I took neither support nor deny Author Carr’s argument. I sit in the middle of those who couldn’t imagine life without their phone, and those who couldn’t care less.