Transcription
[Applause] [Music]
Did you know 80% of children check their phones every five minutes? Crazy, right? Hi everyone, my name is Tanner Walton, and today I'm going to be talking to you about cell phone addiction. Now, I may have an addiction myself, but that doesn't mean I can't talk about it. In fact, who knows it better than me?
There are many people with addictions, different things, but in my opinion, cell phone addiction is number one. Word. Now, hold on a second. I'm sure many of you are thinking, "That's not me. I'm not addicted." Now, take a second to think about how many times a day you use your phone, or just check your phone. What happens to you when you lose your phone? Are you calm and settled, or do you freak out?
There are actually people who have a panic attack. It's called nomophobia, or as I personally like to call it, "no-no phone-obia." It is when you panic if you don't have your phone in your pocket, or you can't find it. I've seen this happen on many occasions in our house. But don't feel alone. In fact, there are 1.5 billion people in China, 24, and many of them are suspected to be addicted to technology. That is almost three-quarters of Canada's population. It is so crazy that parents are putting their children into institutions to detoxify them of technology. But they are not the only ones having this problem. It's happening in Britain, Spain, and several other countries, and I believe that these detox centers will soon be in Canada.
Now, the big question is, why are people so addicted? Well, here's my answer. Take social media, for an example. Every single time you post a photo, let's say, in a matter of 10 seconds, you get four likes. Well, those four likes may be small, but it affects your mind in a huge way. Those 10 seconds of happiness sends a message to your brain saying, "I want more." So then you post another photo, and another photo, just to see how many likes you get. Now you are spending every five minutes of your day checking to see if someone liked your photo, even if that someone is from across the world and you've never met them before. That's, like, a pretty big waste of a day to me.
But it is not just kids I'm talking about. It's adults too. It's like people don't talk to people. Have you ever been to a restaurant and two people are on a date? They don't even look at each other. They are too busy on their devices, talking to someone else, or screenshotting their dinner and sending it to someone that isn't even there. Wow, a nice date night. Great spending time with you and your phone. It's like we live in a virtual world where we can't even feel comfortable with the people we love. We are always looking at, or thinking about, what other people are doing.
There is another aspect of this attachment to technology. We don't even talk to each other in the same household. For instance, some families text each other in the same house. Why don't they just talk to each other? Is it too far away to go up and down three floors? But hey, we still have a generation of people who use the landline to communicate. I swear, every time our phone rings at home, I know exactly who it is: telemarketers or my 70-year-old grandparents. They just learned how to use a phone. They get mad at us if we don't want to talk for a long time about horses, or the farmyard, or things that they did and way back in the 1900s. But we have more important things to do with our time, like go on our cell phones. We don't have a lot of things to talk about. But hey, they can text us, and we'll answer right away. We are available. We just don't want to talk.
Okay, okay, there is something seriously wrong with this. I admit it. Hey, hey, what's up? Yeah. Oh, sorry, I'm actually a bit busy right now. Can I call you back? That's embarrassing. So sorry about that. This is another common problem of today. It's called phubbing. It is a word used to describe when people pay more attention to their device than the people right in front of them. Has that ever happened to you?
Sometimes, when I'm not allowed to take my phone to school, or I forget it, my day is drastically different. Imagine going to school to see all your friends, and everyone is on their device, talking to someone else on social media, or playing video games. It's like we've forgot about the human connection. It is pretty hard to put your phone down, especially when everyone around you has one.
Speaking of human connection, did you know that there are actually signs set up at my local hockey rink to tell people to put their phone away so they can pay attention to their own kid playing hockey? But there's another aspect: it's the sleep. People even sleep with their devices next to them. They use them for alarm clocks, or sleep apps to help them get to sleep. It's a chronic problem everywhere. Did you know that the blue light actually affects the release of melatonin in your brain? You need this to tell your brain to rest. That is why some people are so high-energy before bed. Hopping your phone beside your bed has side effects like digital eye strain, increased illnesses, and even car accidents due to lack of sleep. People, they even drive with their cell phones. They are too busy worried about what someone has to say on their phone rather than paying attention to the road. And I do think we have reason to worry, as cell phones are responsible for a lot of car accidents. Here's a quick fact: did you know that driving 90 kilometers an hour, reading in a five-second text message, is equivalent to traveling a football field blindfolded?
Wrapping things up, as I think we could all talk about many other problems with cell phones, the one thing that I have found is that we really need to be connecting more with each other. One of the best times in my life so far was going away to summer camp last year. Rock Ridge Canyon, a tech-free camp. Kids were told to leave all devices at home. It was not an option. And yes, I'll admit it, it was tough to give it up for a week, but I'm glad I did. As I had the chance to go on some amazing adventures and make some real human connections with people I still talk to today. I mean, myself, and of course.
So, if you take anything away from what I just said, it would be my advice to you is to pay attention to the little things that make you happy. Enjoy the moments that are right in front of you. And as Steve Jobs once said, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." Thank you.
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