Not-So-Smart Phone

They have fast become an addiction in recent years; a gadget we can't seem to step outside without, get panic attacks when we can't feel it in our pocket and rarely leave out of our hands.

Can we even remember a time without a smartphone; when Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter didn’t exist? When you actually had to sit and talk to people without constantly glancing down at your phone for fear you might miss something.

We have become obsessed with our phones and have blurred the line between needing and wanting. We have become addicted, rude, disrespectful and clearly lack any kind of self-control. 

Is it really too much to ask to leave the bloody phone down when someone is trying to have a conversation with you?

Here are four of the most annoying things I've noticed...

Using your phone when someone is talking to you

This is possibly one of my biggest pet peeves. There is absolutely nothing worse than someone scrolling through their news feed while you are trying to have a conversation with them. They are oblivious to what they're doing and it's obvious they're not interested in one word you have to say so, what's the point? Seriously. If you’re going to be that anti-social why do you bother hang out with real life people where, God forbid, you might be subject to real life interaction?

Checking your phone every two seconds

Now don’t get me wrong, smartphones are essential for reminders, alarm clocks and to-do lists but the endless stream of notifications can also be annoying. A status update from Facebook or a notification from Pinterest to tell you you have a new follower are hardly essential updates or justify the need for you to check your phone every two seconds. As well as the ‘ping’ noise becoming super annoying, looking at your phone all the time is anti-social, distracting and can prevent you actually living in the real world.

Bringing your phone everywhere

Seeing people out walking with their phones yapping or texting away irks me like no other. Isn’t one of the main purposes of exercise to relieve stress and disconnect from the world for half an hour? As well as that how many times have we all had someone bang into us because they weren’t looking where they were going because they were too busy with their mobile phones? Just leave the phone at home already!

Using your phone when dealing with a cashier

Working in a shop for the last few years I have dealt with this one too many times. Would you wait in line then as soon as you get to the top of the queue wait a little bit longer while the person serving you takes a call or answers back a text message? I doubt it. Newsflash! You are not the only person in the queue. Other people are waiting, I have a million and one other things to do than wait for you to finish your conversation so stop being ignorant and get off the phone.



Photos c/o: Wordpress, hercampus.com and greenbot.com 

Texters, talkers and seat-kickers...

‘Why do I go to the cinema?’ I asked myself half way through the monotonous, overrated and utterly underwhelming 50 Shades of Grey.

I should have stayed at home, in the comfort of my own house, eating food that didn’t cost a small fortune and avoided the inevitable queue for the year’s most highly anticipated movie.

Before you roll your eyes at yet another critical review of 50 Shades, this blog post is actually not about the beautiful Jamie Dornan or the frustratingly annoying Dakota Johnson. It was, however, inspired by my visit to the cinema to see the movie last Wednesday night.

Now, I wasn’t expecting the movie itself to blow me out of the water but, all in all, I was looking forward to going to the cinema. Sometimes we go just for the experience more so than the actual film itself; for a night out with friends or for a date night with your other half.

Something very similar to this happened me last week...

But last week I questioned my own judgement as to why I bother going at all. To see a film I can probably illegally download on my laptop? To eat ridiculously over-priced popcorn? No.

Every now and again the cinema experience is not the relaxing night we had planned. Sometimes, like last Wednesday, it can actually be a living nightmare. Talkers, texters and people who find pleasure in kicking the back of your seat are all reasons your cinema experience can go oh-so-wrong. If you’re one of those people then maybe you should stop reading now…

 The Talkers

There’s always one, isn’t there? Someone who can’t quite seem to keep up with the plot and who proceeds to ask a hundred and one questions throughout the movie. Maybe if you stopped asking questions and focused on what was happening you might actually know. Just a thought. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are the people who feel it necessary to provide a running commentary on every single movement. Yes I’m here too. Watching the same movie as you. Yes, I can see what just happened. No, I do not need to hear your annoying, little voice repeating what I can already see!

The I’m-super-popular-can’t-leave-my-phone-down-people

Yes, I’m talking about you with your head bent scrolling through your Facebook news feed or frantically texting some other I’m-so-popular-can’t-leave-my-phone-down creature. There is no need to text in the cinema. Seriously, can you really not leave your phone out of your hands for an hour or two? And as for the cinema snapchatters out there. Please. None of your snapchat buddies really want to see a pitch dark snapchat from you declaring how much fun you’re having in the cinema. Put the phone away.

The Food that cost an arm and a leg

 

Despite how over-priced it can be, food at the cinema is a must. Preferably a medium sized popcorn and coke or even some sneaky supplies you bought in Tesco on the way to the cinema. Some people just don’t think about the rest of the people sitting around them who might want to enjoy the film in peace. Eating pistachio nuts, or any other extremely loud and annoying type of food, is not ok and it never will be.

The Late-comers

The late-comers are up there with the seat-kickers. It’s just so annoying. Granted there are those who come in late and have the decency to be embarrassed by it but this, I’m afraid, is not the norm. The people who waltz in, ten minutes into the start of the film, and loudly ponder where they will sit or how much of the movie they’ve missed are the worst kind of people. This is not ok. Please, think of the audience.

The I'm-so-in-love-I-can't-stop-shifting-couple
Ah, couples. Shifting the face off each other might have been ok ten years ago when you were 14-years-old but it’s not ok anymore. Just because it’s dark doesn’t mean we can’t see or hear you. Have some self-control. 

Photos c/o: Wordpress and the National Times.

Snapping the FOMO away

Out with the old and in with the new, isn’t that what they say? But Snapchat users were sent into a frenzy and left feeling overly paranoid and annoyed about the popular app’s new updates. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were soon flooded with statuses complaining about the disappearance of the ‘top best friends’ feature on Snapchat. First world problems you might say, but when did we become so dependent on social media?

People questioned whether Snapchat was just temporarily broken and assured each other the ‘top friends’ would return. Others wondered aloud about the possibility of increased cheating in relationships now that no one can see who’s snapping who the most. Then there were those who complained about those complaining. The whole thing was a bit of an unwarranted, unnecessary fiasco.

Are we really so dependent on social media now? Are friends seriously falling out and relationships actually breaking up over apps like Snapchat? The answer simply is yes. I have heard too many stories about couples tearing the head off each other or, in some cases actually breaking up, over their other halves best friends on Snapchat.

For those of you out there who were genuinely worried about the new Snapchat update and the idea

of not being able to creep on your other halves best friends then it’s time to take a step back and remember the days before social media took over our lives. Snapchat best friends, Facebook ‘likes’, or Instagram’s ‘love’ button should not define or dictate a friendship or a relationship.

In this day and age it is almost impossible not to be sucked in to

the world of social media but unfortunately for us, like the best friends on Snapchat, a lot of other apps can also cause users a headache.

One of the most common things people experience when scrolling through their news feed is FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. For anyone not aware of the word, FOMO is the feeling you get when you see a status, Snapchat or video of people you know having a good time and you’re not there. You hover over said picture wondering why you weren’t invited, how they could possibly be having such a good time without you and, eventually, telling yourself you never wanted to go anyway.

As well as FOMO, so-called ‘life envy’ is another common problem people witness as a result of browsing through social media. Seeing someone you know with something that you want/need/aspire for is a basic definition of life envy and has been known to cause a green-eyed monster to appear via the keyboard.

Now that there is an unprecedented number of apps to keep track of it’s no wonder social media has turned perfectly sane, reasonable, sensible individuals into green-eyed, paranoid, creepy people.

Things can get really crazy really quick. My advice? Take a step back and move away from the keyboard.

When social media becomes antisocial...

It’s the first thing I do in the morning and it’s the last thing I do at night. Most of the time I don’t want to do it but I fall victim to the temptation. I’m an addict.

It’s like every drug; there are highs and there are lows. Sometimes I feel good after doing it and sometimes, more often than not, I’m left with a dull, empty feeling, and I wish I never bothered with it.

But there’s no escaping it, and that makes it hard to quit. The whole world is consumed with it. Social media is my drug and I am an addict.

Yet I’m not alone; far from it in fact. The latest social media statistics show more and more people are signing up and getting involved in the cyber world. What started out as a low key college project for one American college student is now the biggest social media platform with 1.28 billion monthly active users on Facebook. Twitter has also seen a boost in popularity in the last few years as more and more journalists see it as a strong platform for breaking news stories. The site now has 255 million active viewers and an average of 500 million tweets are sent everyday. 78% of Twitter’s active users are on mobile and almost half of these users tweet at least once a day.

Snapchat is the latest phenomenon to grab the attention of social media users. The photo messaging application, initially released in 2011, now has 30 million monthly active users, with an average of 400 million snapchats being sent every day. Similarly Instagram, another online mobile photo-sharing app, has also gained popularity in the past year. To date, over 20 billion photos have been shared on the site and 23% of teenagers consider it their favourite social network.

So how do we pull ourselves away from our phones and laptops? For many people it’s not as easy as just logging out. Most college students have a class Facebook page where they get information on whether a class is on or not or what topics people are studying for a certain exams. By not having a Facebook page you miss out on some important information. Likewise, your actual social life could also be missing out if you deactivate your Facebook page. Gone are the days of sending out handwritten invitations. Today people are invited through the events calendar on Facebook. So, if you don’t have a page you might not get the memo! 

For journalists it’s even harder. In an age where print media is declining, digital and social media is where we now look to. So how do we limit the amount of time we spend online when that’s where we now have to look to for breaking news, current affairs and all the latest happenings from around the world? As a journalist I find it difficult to distance myself from social media when it’s one of our main sources of information. But at the same time I have to wonder at what cost are we simplifying our lives by communicating through such sites?

And that’s maybe where the addiction starts. You say you’re just going to log on for a minute and check if there’s anything important you need to know and suddenly, you’ve wasted two hours scrolling through your news feed. It’s so easy to get addicted to looking at other people’s lives, both celebrities and people you actually know. They look like they’re living the dream and having a great time with all their statuses, photos and snapchats…but are they really? The problem with social media sites is that people only show the good side of everything they’re doing. So, the next time you get jealous while creeping on someone else’s Facebook, Instagram or whatever it may be, just remember; they may not be having as good a time as you think.

 

But most of us can’t resist and we all crave attention in some way, shape or form. By posting on

social media networks we satisfy that craving when we get a ‘like’ on our new profile picture, a retweet on Twitter, or a match on Tinder. We are a world that has become dependent on social media in order to feel good about ourselves and that’s not healthy.

Pubs and nightclubs, once full of people actually talking to each other, are now full of people glancing at their phones every two minutes, taking pictures on snapchat or creeping on Facebook. I have decided to make a conscious effort to distance myself from social media when I am on a night out or in the company of others. It’s just not necessary most of the time. I’m gonna try that old fashioned thing called talking. It can’t be that hard…can it?