Smart Phones are an Instrument of Laziness

I was recently thinking about how I could keep living expenses down significantly while enjoying the experience of life. The TV is expensive and not necessary, but I doubt I'd get rid of it. Nevertheless I've sworn to myself to limit TV consumption, which in turn would force me to find more productive things to do with my time. My next idea on how to save money is to switch from a smart phone to a cheap flip phone, which can't be done due to social purposes at this point. But it got me thinking, these things that were made to make our lives simpler have all but consumed our lives. We no longer have to remember anything, just set an alert. If we have a thought, make a note an expand on it when we have the time. If we want to talk to someone, text (which I'm noticing isn't used as much anymore), or now FaceTime and/or Facebook group chat. Horny? Limitless access to the Internet means a limitless amount of porn, the bane of our society. We could also sext with others over snapchat. Smart phones are consuming every aspect of our life, and it is counterproductive to our evolution as a species. Now insignificant things in our own social circles take on Orwellian significance for short periods of time, before our short intention spans focus with the definition of a laser on the next "thing." Important things, such as what has been happening to Edward Snowden, fall out of the mainstream as fast as they came into it. I'm curious as to how many people remember his name, or even what the PRISM project was. Remember how many people swore to keep their online activity more secretive since then? How many people actually followed through?

In depicting smartphones as these things that ruin our perceptions and experiences in life, I'm being utterly unfair to smartphones. Smartphones, if used properly, can be the greatest leap in technology in human achievement so far. Using a smartphone, you can teach yourself how to play guitar (which I did). You have the ability to learn any of a number of languages at your fingertips. You can consume a large amount of information in a relatively short period of time, you can learn how to dance, how to sing, how to do anything you can dream of. The issue here is, the smartphone doesn't do any of the work for you, it only gives you the opportunity to do these things for yourself. We live in a time in which we can achieve personal growth, where the axiom "the sky is the limit" cannot hold true because there truly is no limit. We also live in a time in which we are collectively lazier than any humans at any other time in history. These smartphones are our modus operandi for reaching great heights. But we must remember that it is still only a tool, and we must do all of the work ourselves.