This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com.
“Look at that table… everyone is staring at their phones.”
My wife and I are on the same page with money. We’re both savers. I often joke we get more enjoyment out of watching our bank balance grow than we do buying stuff.
But we recently splurged on a nice restaurant.
After being cooped up in the house, it was nice to finally get out!
We booked a babysitter in advance so we could have a nice meal at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud here in Dublin. It has a coveted two Michelin stars, and it’s one of the best dining experiences you could imagine. It’s not cheap. You’ll hand over at least $500 for two people, but it’s worth it. You’re treated like royalty, and the food is amazing.
We spotted a table of four from across the room. About halfway through our meal, my wife leaned in and whispered, “Look over at that table… everyone is staring at their phones.” She was right… everyone at the table had their heads stuck in their phones—as they sat in the best restaurant in Ireland!
The rise of the internet and smartphones has mostly improved our lives. High-speed internet allows us to work from anywhere in the world. Thanks to Google, you can access practically any information 24/7.
The downside is many folks are hopelessly obsessed with tapping, typing, and swiping on their phones.
Research from Harvard shows the average American touches their phone over 3,000 times daily. 3,000 times!... which works out to roughly four hours/day staring down at our screens. Think about it like this… that’s 28 hours/week we could spend doing something we “haven’t got the time for.”
In the morning, our phones buzz to wake us up. Emails stream into our inboxes all day long. Even when you don’t have any notifications, you might whip your phone out every few minutes or so to check if there’s anything new.
In short, we’ve become addicted to our phones—even more so thanks to the coronavirus—and it’s hurting our lives.
Smartphones are a black hole where “to-do lists” go to die. Research from the American Phycological Association (APA) shows we have limited “brain power.” Said differently, our minds are like batteries—they can only perform a finite number of tasks before they need to be recharged.
Phones put the world at our fingertips. The next article or video is always just one click away. Each time we whip out our phones to check the news… the latest sports scores… or our Twitter feeds… we are “draining” our mental batteries.
The average American does this roughly 1,000 times before lunch, leaving no energy for important work. The APA study found this puts our brains into a state of constant distraction. We can’t focus on important tasks for more than 10 minutes without checking our phones.