Originally posted by Darth Thor
I agree with you about the mega convenience that we're just never going to go back to the way things were.However it's actually really bad for our eye-hand coordination not to write with a pen anymore.
Must be a lot of other ill effects as well, people like my Dad (who was never very techy and still isn't) see how we've all become literal zombies on our phones. It's especially bad for kids (but if they don't get on it they'll get left behind pretty quickly in technology).
I try to keep my phone at a distance (Use the speaker phone a lot to talk and try not to keep it in my pocket).
It's possible, but I'm not sure that's actually true to be honest. And we do have evidence showing that gaming improves your hand-eye coordination anyway, which is a huge part of phone use. Even if it didn't, there's only a base level of hand-eye coordination needed in life, unless you're an athlete.
I hear the zombies on a phone idea a lot too, but I think it's largely just people being resistant to change. Basically, "it wasn't around in my day, therefore it's bad." It's an extremely useful tool, so people will use it a lot. I'm not sure this is actually bad, so much as different from what we're used to. Granted, smartphones haven't been around long, so we don't have conclusive long term info on them. I suspect they will turn like most other new technologies though -- everyone will be skeptical at first, then humans turn out fine in the end. People had the same gloom-and-doom ideas about video games, television, and telephones, yet we've adjusted to their presence too.
I think a bigger issue is what is your phone being used for, moreso than simply using it at all. I don't have social media (didn't even do it as a kid), so maybe the negative parts of that fly past me.