With the booming popularity of smartphones many people use their phones at almost any given time. This is hurting us not only socially but mentally as well. Research conducted by the nonprofit Common Sense Media had 50 6th graders go to a wilderness camp for 5 days. The kids" took tests took two tests to measure their ability to read nonverbal social cues. In the first, the kids were asked to judge the emotions portrayed in 48 photos of people making faces. In the second test, they watched a video with the sound turned off and then judged the emotional state of the actor." (News ela). The kids …show more content…
After the camp they took the tests again and the results were astonishing. After just 5 days of camp and bonding with fellow peers without the use of phones the kids made an average of 14.02 errors on the face-recognition test at the beginning of their camp stay but only 9.41 errors by the end. This shows that the usage of smartphones are taking a toll on the younger generation as they showed lackluster performance for the basic social cues test they took. However the results improved after not using smartphones in just 5 days. If people keep using technology as obsessive and addictive as they currently are then society will transform into the emotionless humans that were depicted in Fahrenheit 451. Human attention span is also being effected. The New York York Times posted an article about the effects of smartphone usage on young people. The article stated that "The risk, they say, is that developing brains can become more easily habituated than adult brains to constantly switching tasks — and less able to sustain attention."(newyorktimes). Because of the vast amount of content on the internet people are constantly switching tasks and not focusing on one thing. Not only is technology harming humans in a mental way it is also harming them as well. Every year, thousands of pedestrians are injured as they walk in cities. Some researchers say 1 out of 10 of those injuries are caused by a distracting mobile device