According to some, the human body can survive for three weeks without food, three days without water, and typically 7-8 minutes without air. Did you notice that I just enumerated the three things that are most crucial for maintaining either life or humans? Why did I suddenly decide to lecture you from an encyclopedia or the world of science is the question.
What if I told you—while conveniently ignoring the fact that we evolved from monkeys—that we have advanced to the point where these three things are no longer all that we require to maintain life. Slowly and steadily, whether intentionally or unintentionally, it has crept up to become one of the necessities for survival. Of course, I’m referring to mobile phones and all of their ilk, including tablets, smartwatches, and other devices.
I estimate that 90% of people will concur with me when I say that we cannot go more than a minute without our mobile phones. The sad truth is that none of us want to face it. Call it habit, being enslaved to them, or whatever. With social networking playing a pivotal role in the lives of people of all age groups, people seem as if they are infused with a need to become “cool” and as a result, the need for mobile phones has risen drastically. Now more important than anything else, including eating, sleeping, and daily tasks, is the vibration and sound of receiving a message.
Phantom notification syndrome (the tendency of someone to believe they got a notification when they have actually not) is not just an observation about the youth but for almost all people with a “smartphone” these days. It seems as if we were taught to check our phones every minute or so for no apparent reason. And if it’s not to check our zero messages, it’s either to take a selfie, tell ourselves we look good, or play games. It only ever happens when the task is outside of these three categories.
And if we look at it objectively, playing games until our fingers hurt comes in second place to messaging, texting, tweeting, and Instagramming.
After WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, this is the feature that all devices have in common. So easy to do, but so compelling. The online game has become so popular that I eventually joined in on the fun, and I have no memory of the month that followed. I mean, it’s impossible for anyone to escape the daily barrage of requests for video games. What makes the mobile game so addictive is difficult to describe; it could be its cool sound effects, how difficult it gets as you advance, its straightforward interface, or something else entirely. However, there is one thing that has been established in stone: it will undoubtedly continue to be a crowd favorite for a very long time.