How Smartphones Negatively Impact Modern Day Users

Smartphones are very new, sophisticated and impactful phenomena in the realm of modern technology. Smartphones allow users to surf the web, watch videos, navigate and even pay bills all from the convenience of one portable device. However, despite the convenience and friendly platform of smartphones, these pocket gadgets come with some very negative realities. Smartphones have been a part of social decline by contributing to lower levels of quality socialization, present many serious security threats and can become an addiction for those who use one on a regular basis. It is clear that smartphones are not going anywhere and that fact makes the problems even more necessary to solve.

Quality socialization is a phrase that can be used to help conceptualize a meaningful social interaction. Obviously, it is crucial to distinguish quality from non-quality socialization. For example, before smartphones, even cell phones, breakups could not be carried out through text messages (non-quality) but were instead usually face-to-face or at the very least via a phone call (quality). The richness of an interaction, even one as negative as a breakup, is contingent upon the presence of people. In the world of smartphones, people are technically not present. The interaction takes place almost exclusively between the device and person rather than person and person. Smartphones are essentially the middleman in communication. It is important to note that quality socialization began to decline far before the introduction of smartphones. Smartphones are simply an extension of the decline. “…the smartphone/social networking cocktail combined with this penchant for information snacking is the perfect storm for artificially created autism spectrum disorders, and it makes antisocial behavior in the form of a non-stop feedback loop the new accepted form” (Perlow, par 4). Additionally, the “sidekick” to smartphones is, largely, social media sites like FaceBook.

While this argument could easily be misconstrued as an attack on technology, it is important to distinguish between different technologies and how they impact the lives of human beings. For example, the introduction of the radio and later the television, are examples of what could be called communal and consumptive technology. Smartphones, on the other hand, are interactive which means they are largely personal and can be enjoyed in isolation. In terms of the connection with social media sites, smartphones are even more apt to inspire anti-social behavior or at the very least decrease the quality of socialization. This is due in large part to the mobility of smartphones. Unlike desktops or even laptop computers, smartphones are pocket size, and with a data plan, which they require, access to the internet is constant.

In the past, with PCs, social media social interaction was limited due to the limited access to the internet through these devices. In other words, with PCs, people eventually had to detach from them. With smartphones, people can logon to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. 24 hours a day, seven days a week and constantly communicate through these social media sites without ever having to participate in face-to-face communication or directly communicate in any form with people (Perlow, par 14). Finally, smartphones are devices of convenience. It has become so easy to check status updates or conduct text conversations instead of actually talking to people in a quality sense. Due to the lack of face-to-face interaction that smartphones encourage, understanding nonverbal communication has been a problem of socialization.

It has been demonstrated through continuous research that communication is mostly conveyed through body language and how statements themselves are made such as the usage of tone. Very little, in fact, less than 10 percent of communication resides in the words themselves. Since smartphones are increasingly becoming the primary vehicle used in communication, it is troubling that most of that communication takes place through Short Message Service (SMS). While SMS (text messaging) precedes smartphones themselves, smartphones have enhanced the convenience of SMS for users. In fact, regarding interpersonal skills, “when you spend more time texting people instead of talking to them, you don’t learn how to read nonverbal language” (Nam, par 13). It is alarming to consider the implications of reducing communication to mere letters on a screen. Misunderstandings occur with in-person communication and over the phone on a regular basis. When the two most important identifiers of communication (body language and tone) are removed from observation, the potential risk for miscommunication goes up significantly. While smartphones ironically have the capacity to allow a user to make a phone call, this feature is often overlooked in exchange for less personal and more convenient means of communication. Because smartphones are so convenient, many people often overlook the numerous security threats associated with them.

One of the most insidious dangers with smartphones is the fact that they are commonly accepted, especially with their use to access social media sites. “To most, social media conjures up thoughts of celebrities tweeting embarrassing pictures, long-forgotten friends connecting with each other on Facebook…” (Gupta and Brooks 4). While smartphones are undeniably used to access social media platforms, there are opportunities for devious people to target unsuspecting smartphone users. “Smartphones and Facebook are very much the norm with a cross-section of the population, and these social mediums could lead us to become vulnerable targets” (Hutchinson, par 2). Just like the degradation of socialization, smartphones in conjunction with social media sites are contributing to the degradation of security and privacy. Much of this breach has to do with the lack of awareness among users because of the commonplace characteristic of smartphone usage. Since smartphones are like a computer in the palm of your hands in a sense, usernames, passwords and browsed pages are stored in the phone’s memory. Just like any PC, smartphones can be hacked and read from a distance. This is even more dangerous with smartphones though because many users do not have anti-virus apps installed on their devices because security is often overlooked. One such area where security regarding smartphones is of great concern is the use of Bluetooth.

Bluetooth is considered everyday technology in the cellphone world. While this technology predates smartphones, it is still an application that has a very serious security concern for smartphone users who commonly utilize it.

In a recent security experiment, a computer with a Bluetooth sniffing program was hidden in a suitcase that was wheeled around public places. The objective was to ascertain the number of Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices that could be infected with viruses wirelessly. In less than 23 hours, more than 1,400 vulnerable devices were detected... (Loo 150)

Although Bluetooth can only be exercised on a limited range, there are very easy ways to expand its range, including the use of antennas. In fact, some of the 1,400 devices mentioned above were hacked from 11 floors above street level on people waiting for taxi service. Further, “these numbers of vulnerable phones reflect the low level of public awareness about the potential security threats of smart phones and Bluetooth. Phone users also underestimate the possible damage if their mobile phones are compromised” (Loo 150). In fact, the types of information that are compromised by these hacking tools are quite severe.

The results of the experiment showed several different areas of security breach: bugging, sending SMS messages, financial losses, leaked passwords, identity theft, network attacks, and corporation data leak. In terms of bugging, potential hackers were able to make phone calls remotely and could record the conversations for later use. With sending SMS messages, there is the potential for criminals to falsely frame innocent and unsuspecting users. Untrue threats could be sent via SMS messaging. For financial losses, users could be at risk of massive downloading or the sending of MMS messages. MMS messages, because of their size, require data, unlike SMS messages. In addition to financial losses, passwords are often stored in smartphones as a way to conveniently logon to several different webpages without having to manually insert the passwords every time. “Examples include corporate accounts, internet banking accounts, ATM PINS, and the codes to deactivate the alarm systems of the companies or homes of users” (Loo 151). Password leaking is particularly frightening considering the violation does not end with the smartphone.

Following password leaking is the danger of identity theft. Identity theft dangers lie in the black market because hackers often sell and purchase information. In terms of networking attacks, this primarily refers to crashing network providers of smartphones. “If a virus infected a large number of phones, it could instruct all of them to make phone class (or send SMS or MMS messages) simultaneously at a certain time” (Loo 151). This type of network sabotage could impact companies like T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon from being able to adequately deal with hackers and protect customer information. Finally, corporate data leak is another danger. Since many people work on the go, smartphones are a convenient tool to store corporate data. Should those smartphones be infiltrated, countless amounts of data could be compromised.

Fortunately, there are steps users can take in order to combat the problems of security breaches via Bluetooth technology. “Be vigilant and treat a smart phone as a computer…invest in the time to update knowledge…be aware of social engineering techniques” (Loo 152). Perhaps one of the biggest problems in securing smartphones is the constant development of technology. It is, at the very least, a challenge to stay one step ahead of potential predatory hackers and make sure private information is kept private on smartphones. In addition to the specific security problems of Bluetooth and smartphones, information leaks, in general, are substantial and all too common.

In terms of smartphones, a common phrase used to explain security breaches is “side channels.” “The vulnerability of such side channels has been known for years, but as more computing moves into the cloud and onto smartphones and tablets, computer scientists are discovering new avenues of attack” (Savage 19). Essentially, side channels are ways that hackers can use to infiltrate a smartphone. This is done by piggybacking off of one application that is running to see what other applications do. A hacker can monitor this activity until an application of interest is revealed such as a banking mobile application. In addition to monitoring applications, hackers can also monitor browsing activity. “The attack takes advantage of the proc filesystem, a virtual file of process information, in Unix, which is the basis of Linux and Android, to uncover how much memory is allocated to a program…whenever a browser loads a page, it does a bunch of memory allocations…that gives away which pages you are browsing” (Savage 20). While it may not seem that the knowledge of pages browsed is significantly dangerous, over time, a hacker can use this knowledge plus “side channeling” to begin to unravel passwords. “Combining this process with other side-channel attacks could expose even more information. For instance, an adversary can measure the time between keystrokes when a user is typing, and use that to guess which keys are being struck” (Savage 21). This information could make obtaining personal data very easy for a hacker. In addition to the glaring security problems associated with smartphones, the addictive qualities they possess are also cause for concern.

In 2013 a study published in the PLoS ONE journal attempted to place smartphone addiction on a scale for the adolescent demographic in South Korea. South Korea is a great example country because smartphone usage is very high even compared to the United States and it is also the country home to Samsung, the largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide. “With a mobile-phone penetration rate of more than 100%...and smartphones nearly two-thirds of these devices…in the U.S. was 50%...” (Nam, par 7). In addition to current percentages, the change within the last few years is striking. “…smartphone use in children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19 years in Korea increased dramatically from 7.5% in 2009 to 67% in 2012” (Brauser 1). Smartphones are clearly becoming everyday gadgets for children as well as teenagers. This field of research was created partly due to the undeniable rising usage of smartphones as well as a telling 2012 survey. “According to the survey of smartphone addiction completed by the National Information Society Agency…the percentage of smartphone addiction was 8.4% which was found to be higher than the internet addiction of 7.7%” (Kwon et al. 1). The survey is cause for concern, considering there was also a finding that the demographic of people in their teens made up most of the 8.4% which suggests that increased smartphone addiction is probable in the future.

Regarding the 2013 study, a series of questionnaires were given to 540 adolescents in order to come up with degrees of smartphone addiction. The questionnaires were then measured using three scales: SAS (smartphone addiction scale), SAPS (smartphone addiction proneness scale) and the KS-scale which is essentially an internet addiction scale. Since the SAS and KS-scales are based on answers to self-reported questions, the SAPS is crucial because it contrasts individual answers to a vast array of addiction knowledge on smartphones and internet usage. In this study, the accuracy of SAPS had a strong correlation of 0.861 (Kwon et al. 2). Finally, these questions were selected by experts in several fields such as addiction and psychology.

In terms of self-assessment, the results are quite telling. “In the self-assessment of smartphone addiction, 134 (24.8%) students considered themselves addicted to smartphones, 312 (57.8%) students considered themselves as not addicted to smartphones, and 94 (17.4%) students were unsure” (Kwon et al. 4). In a smaller sample of the original 540 adolescents, 90 boys and 60 girls were randomly picked to be consulted by psychologists. “The symptoms of addiction, tolerance and withdrawal, were exhibited by 15 (16.6%) of boys and 16 (26.6%) girls. They were considered addicted to smartphones” (Kwon et al. 4). Therefore, it would seem that, adjusting for the sample size change, addiction to smartphones was consistent in self-report as well as through the introduction of expert analysis.

It is probable that the appeal of smartphones, which can lead to addiction by users, is fueled by psychological factors. When a person is addicted to something be it any kind of material substance: food, alcohol, gambling etc. there is a void filled by that addictive tendency. In terms of smartphones, that tendency is impulse.

Although it is natural to want to avoid distress, seek out pleasure, or feel relief, the problem with satiating these cravings or quelling that upset is that your brain then becomes hardwired to automatically choose unhealthy behaviors to calm you down. In essence, indulging these habitual responses causes your body and brain to begin to associate something you do, avoid, seek out, or repetitively think about with temporary relief or pleasure. These actions create strong and enduring patterns (circuits) in your brain that are difficult to change without considerable effort and attention. (Schwartz and Gladding 13)

What is perhaps most unhealthy about smartphones is their constant availability to relieve anxiety or to provide temporary relief. Unlike other addictive substances, smartphones are constantly in reach for use. There is no requirement of the user to wait to use a smartphone. In fact, the main purpose of a smartphone is to remove the requirement to wait. By their very natures, smartphones encourage addiction through on-demand entertainment, communication, and financial tracking. Therefore, it is understandable that anxiety, depression and an overall sense of unsettledness is present among people addicted to smartphones. Smartphones are not only an expedient tool for the user but they also encourage a mindset of now instead of later. When a person becomes accustomed to being able to do or see anything now, it is understandable that when that ability is removed, stress occurs. It is for this reason that smartphones are so addictive.

In addition to the demonstrated addictive power of smartphones on adolescents and the general public, their appeal also extends to professionals in their respective careers. “We are all too familiar with the challenges of the “always-connected” age of the smartphone…that will enable us to be on the golf course, on the beach, on the couch or even in bed, and still be working” (Perlow 1). In the context of work and the mounting pressure of an increasingly fast-paced society, smartphones appear to be the answer. However, with the ultimate work mobility that smartphones provide, comes with it an increased sense of constant work. It is convenient to be able to work from anywhere. The danger in this, however, is that if work can be done everywhere it is all too easy to start working everywhere. If someone using a smartphone is unaware of this danger, the addiction can occur without the person realizing it. Further, there is a sense of freedom associated with being able to work outside of the office and away from the hustle-bustle. However, if the smartphone becomes the main tool in working, suddenly the work continues outside of the office and begins to dominate the other areas of life for the professional smartphone user.

Since smartphones are readily available and are becoming essential tools in an ever-increasing competitive work environment, it is not surprising that professionals do not take a vacation from their smartphones. In a sample of over 1,500 managers and everyday professionals, it was reported that over 90 percent worked at least 50 per week just at the office. However, this doesn’t account for the additional hours spent using a smartphone for work-related purposes. “70 percent admitted to checking their smartphone each day within an hour after getting up, and 56 percent did so within an hour before going to bed…if they lost their wireless device and couldn’t replace it for a week, 44 percent of those surveyed said they would experience “a great deal of anxiety” (Perlow 6). While checking a smartphone after waking up and before going to bed is understandable considering the nature of professional careers, the overwhelming anxiety that often comes with relying on a smartphone should make people reconsider if smartphones are worth the worry. Also, because smartphones have become powerful tools in the business world, there is obviously increased pressure on professionals to keep up with the competition. If their coworkers or competitors are using smartphones as a part of their careers, there is a lot of incentive to incorporate them into their careers. Essentially it is a vicious cycle of habit and convenience. Smartphones, for all of their advanced technology and readily accessible resources, come with a hefty psychological price tag.

Technology is rapidly increasing and smartphones are just one example of the advancement of technology. It is clear by their popularity and appeal that smartphones are going to remain a significant part of people’s lives. While this fact brings with it the dangers of decreased socialization, increased security risks and an increased risk for addiction, smartphones appear to provide too many benefits such as expediency and access to a multitude of information to be discarded. Therefore, the negative effects associated with smartphones should be discussed and studied in hopes of finding solutions.

Works Cited

Brauser, Deborah. "Smartphone 'Addiction' May Affect Adolescent Development." Medscape Multispeciality. Medscape Medical News, 23 May 2013. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

Gupta, Ravi, and Hugh Brooks. Using Social Media for Global Security. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Print.

Hutchinson, John. "Smartphone Stalkers: How Modern Technology Makes It Easy for Us to Become Targets." Mail Online News. Associated Newspapers Ltd, 2 Feb. 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2013.

Kwon, Min, Dai-Jin Kim, Hyun Cho, and Soo Yang. "The Smartphone Addiction Scale: Development and Validation of a Short Version for Adolescents." PLoS ONE 8.12 (2013): 1-7. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

Loo, Alfred. "Security Threats of Smart Phones and Bluetooth." Communications of the ACM 52.3 (2009): 150-52. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

Nam, In-Soo. "A Rising Addiction Among Youths: Smartphones." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 23 July 2013. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

Perlow, Jason. "Smartphones: Transforming Society into a Sea of Stupid." ZDNet Technology News. CBS Interactive, 26 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

Perlow, Leslie A. Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review, 2012. Print.

Savage, Neil. "Stopping the Leaks." Communications of the ACM 56.1 (2013): 19-21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

Schwartz, Jeffrey, and Rebecca Gladding. You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life. New York: Avery, 2011. Print.