Why are People Always on Smartphones?

One of the most bizarre aspects of our modern culture is that many people are buried on their cell phones 24/7. At a family meal in a restaurant, at least one person is likely to be buried on their cell phone, people often walk straight out into traffic still buried on cell phones, and people even go through checkout lines talking on cell phones, eschewing normal human interaction. The creepy obsession and dependency of modern culture on smartphones is disturbing from a spiritual and philosophical prospective.

From a spiritual prospective, smartphones have become an idol to many people. They can be considered a form of materialism. As Scripture states, “For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.” If people’s priority is their smartphone, then that is not much of a treasure. You can’t take it with you into the next life. Why do people not value their friends, families, or whomever is right in front of them?

From a philosophical prospective, a lie of modern society is that “your life will be easier if you own a smartphone.” Indeed, having the world at one’s fingers is convenient, but at what cost? What freedom do people actually gain? Archbishop Fulton Sheen famously said that there can be no freedom for without freedom from. The two must always go together. There must be freedom from some type of constraint, and there must be freedom to fulfill a good goal or a purpose. With smartphones, the goal is to have an easier, more convenient life, but in order to have that you must give up quite a bit of personal freedom which can end up creating even more constraints. Some people have their entire lives on their phones, their medical information, banking information, personal passwords, and logins. What happens when it gets lost or stolen is an entire nightmare. In addition, any and all information contained in a smartphone is public information, accessible by someone else somewhere.

In conclusion, our society would be so much healthier and saner if people did not seek happiness so much from their smartphones and be so dependent on it. People need to quit being slaves. They need to put down their phones and pay attention to their surroundings, and appreciate the faces around them.