The mobile phone is a tremendous feat of human endeavour and imagination, in fact they are such a success that there are now more mobile phones than humans in the world….and the first one was only in 1983! Amazing!!
If I were to roughly analyse my own mobile usage- I’d hazard a guess that my weekly calls probably total no more than 15 mins max talktime, WhatsApp probably another 90 mins.
As for the pre-historic text message (which at one time I was enternally grateful for due to my five free daily texts on my 1990s PAYG Orange tariff) zero seconds is used. The fact that the amount of texts per month was at one time a key decision on your next phone tariff it seems a lifetime ago and makes a mockery of the abundance of communication tools we have in the palm of our hands today for free.
All the same, despite their marvel Mobile phones from my own perspective are killers of productivity.
For sure we may use them for work but outside of work we will spend hours on our personal phones on a daily basis mindlessly scrolling on Twitter, IG,FB or Tiktok (to share funny videos to mates hence my 90 mins
WhatsApp usage per week 😄
Nothing of note I feel has ever been achieved by having the phone stuck to my hand! It assists greatly but doesn’t drive the car, it connects singles on tinder but the physical meeting is needed to determine suitability.
No formal contracts whether that be morgage, divorce or marriages are completed by phone only.
The joy of human connection or indeed even that of the humble PC and physical keyboard or pen and paper feels for some reason more official or proper deliberate work!
We can fire off a message on WhatsApp in 2 seconds with our mind stuck on autopilot whereas a physical letter or indeed an email seems more ‘official’ as you have to actually engage the brain and put some thought into what you’re typing
For my own blog I find the act of physically typing on the keyboard more meaningful and thought provoking and mentally more beneficial. Ive also found the sitting down and typing act a better habit builder too.
Forgetting the minor inconvenience that the average mobile phone has 20-30 times more bacteria than your
standard toilet flush and bowl, do we/you need to take a back seat and re-assess our personal productivity vs screen time and dedicate more concentrated physical time on achieving our life goals as opposed to deluding ourselves with the pseudo-productivity tool that for me anyways is my mobile phone?
