Had a blast taking callers for an hour with host Rita Celli on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today. This time, we asked callers about their smartphone usage habits.
Initial Spark
A design company created a thought experiment called, “Envelope”. As advertised, it’s an envelope for your smartphone that reduces it’s functionality down to the bare basics.
References
- Google first added “Family Link” to Android in 2017. This feature is aimed at parents to help them track what their children under are doing on their devices. They’ve steadily added features to this and Android to help everyone understand how they are using their devices
- Apple introduced “Screen Time” in Sept/2020 to monitor your and your family’s usage of their iPhones/iPads. This feature also allows users to enforce limits on overall time and time using specific categories of apps
- internet addiction, online gaming addiction, and smartphone addiction haven’t been official recognized by the America Psychiatric Association but upon the last revision (2013), online (internet) gaming addiction was recommended for further study. There is enough anecdotal evidence that this is a serious issue that not only affected social relationships but also sleep and other areas of life
- the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK conducted a study to look at the impact of social media on people’s mental health. The results weren’t positive.
- a look at the ways some apps are designed to be addictive from the BBC
- Instagram is removing visible likes in order to make the platform a more positive place. Some argue that won’t address the core problems
- there’s apparently enough market demand for “non-smart” phones that Nokia updated it’s classic 3310 and re-released it in 2017 and it’s still available today