Читать книгу The Communication Playbook - Teri Kwal Gamble - Страница 15

Although we sometimes discount communicating face-to-face or forget it altogether, doing so effectively is equally, if not more, important than connecting through technology. Despite this, in a 2015 Pew Research Center study, 89% of smartphone owners reported using their phones during the last social gathering they attended. They also reported that they were not happy about it because it impeded conversation.³

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A few years back, a YouTube video titled “I Forgot My Phone” went viral. By now, the video has been viewed more than 50 million times. At the video’s start, we see a couple in bed. The woman stares into space while her boyfriend focuses on his smartphone. The scenes that follow show the woman in the midst of a series of dystopian situations. Her friends ignore her and stare at their phones during lunch. Concertgoers are too busy recording the performance to enjoy it. The guest of honor at a birthday party takes selfies while his friends sing. The last scene finds the couple back in bed. Her boyfriend is still phone obsessed.

Are we addicted to smartphones and social media? According to research, we well might be captives of our devices. Many of us use our phones more than we even imagine we do. In fact, when asked to estimate their smartphone usage, participants estimated an average of 37 uses daily. The actual number was about 85 times daily, or once every 11 minutes of your typical waking day. The duration of use was 5.05 hours, including phone calls and listening to music.⁴

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are hypnotically compelling for many of us, in part because they deliver unscheduled “variable rewards”—much like slot machines do. Messages, alerts, notifications, photos, and “likes” are sent to us randomly, making it virtually impossible for us not to react to them. They induce large numbers of us to become compulsive site checkers looking for a dopamine boost—almost as if we were seeking a fix.