Are You Addicted To Your Phone?

12 Apr 23 Rachel Pearson

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When was the last day you went without your phone?

Find out how our addiction to phones and increasing dependence on technology shape our uncertain future in this first excerpt from 'Will You Stroke Your Robot Dog' - our latest Tilt Talk event.

  • Ever felt like you should cut down on your screen time?
  • Do you get called out by people for being on your phone too much?
  • Do you reach for your phone as soon as you wake up?!

Yeah…you might have an addiction.

Listen to Uthman Ali talk about tech addiction and dependence and what, as a digital and neuro ethicist, he thinks will be the impact of this in the future…

Video Transcript

“So I wanted to ask you a few questions to start this off.

So the first one, have you ever felt like you should cut down on your screen time? If we can get a show of hands.

Number two have people annoyed you by criticising the amount of time you spend online.

Three. Have you ever felt bad or guilty about being online too much? For do you reach for your phone as soon as you wake up?

Have you ever felt anxious or had nerves if you couldn’t find it?

You probably have an addiction issue. So these are actually the questions used by cage for Alcoholics, Anonymous.

And the author of this book The Lonely Century really highlights this point. That we probably do have an unhealthy relationship with how we use technology. But we just don’t really acknowledge it.

You’ve seen this documentary social dilemma. It was an interesting one, right? So when was the last time any of you spent a day without your phone? Could anyone remember?

It’s not like a little bit weird. and this this question asked a lot as well is for me 2005 was a great year. I was 12 through 2000 but I remember it for some reason I think 2005 was good for me. Even though I didn’t I was 12 like what did I really do? But Before social media in 2005 do you think life was better back then? Or do you think it’s better now?

Let’s get show hands of if you err on the side of it being better before social media. Okay, it’s pretty mixed because you know 2005, the reason I included this, I had a chat about this with one of my mates, and in 2005 Kanye released Diamonds from Sierra Leone. Now he says some very different things.

So that was sort of my test to see have things got better or worse.”