This, That, and the Other

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 3rd) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

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This was originally posted on March 3, 2018.

Smartphone Addiction

So I read in the paper the other day that the average smartphone user typically touches his or her smartphone 2,617 times per day.

What? More than 2600 times a day? Assuming that the average person is awake 18 hours a day, that comes to around 145 touches per waking hour. Or two-and-a-half touches a minute! Is that even possible? That’s crazy.

Well, maybe not. According to Pew Research, one-third of American smartphone owners describe their phones as “something they can’t imagine living without.” And I am one of them. I freely admit that I am addicted to my iPhone.

My cellphone additction started around 1997, when I got my first BlackBerry, the RIM 857. It was a miracle device. I could make phone calls, compose, send, and receive emails. It had an address book, a calculator, an alarm clock. I didn’t go anywhere without my beloved BlackBerry.

It didn’t take long for BlackBerry devices to earn the nickname “Crackberry” because users — predominantly business people — became addicted to them. And that was before web browsers and cameras became standard issue on smartphones.

Everything changed in 2007 when Apple introduced the iPhone. Suddenly using a smartphone to take snapshots and to browse the web became “the thing.”

Fast forward a decade. Our smartphones have become an extension of ourselves. There are apps for just about any task imaginable. And many people don’t even talk on their smartphones anymore. They text, email, and post updates on Facebook or Snapchat, and photos on Instagram.

Smartphones accompany us in some of the most significant and intimate experiences of our lives. We take them with us when we go to the bathroom. We keep them near us while we sleep. They join us at meals, while watching TV or reading, at church, in our cars. Dare I say that they’re not far out of reach even when we’re having sex? We are rarely without them.

I have a laptop and an iPhone. Sometimes days go by when I don’t turn on my laptop, but my iPhone is never not by my side. It’s the last thing I look at before I go to sleep at night and the first thing I look at when I wake up in the morning.

I do all of my web surfing on my iPhone. And all of my blogging activity as well. That includes composing and posting, reading others bloggers’ posts, and commenting. I no longer have a digital camera. Rather, all of my photos are taken with my iPhone. In fact, when it gets right down to it, I could easily live without my laptop, but not without my iPhone.

So when it comes to the average number of smartphone touches at 2,617 times per day, I’m probably way above average.

What about you?