Tillmann Prüfer is a member of the editor-in-chief of “Zeit-Magazin”.
I have a very mixed relationship with my smartphone. On the one hand, I spend the whole day with the device. My screen time per day is in the double digits, so I can say that I spend more time on my smartphone than anything else.
I like to emphasize that I also work with my cell phone. But unfortunately I don’t shut it down during the weekend either. If my smartphone is out of reach, I get nervous. There could be important news that I’m missing. Someone could email me, call me, text me.
Anything can happen when I don’t have my phone in my hand.
On the other hand, I also hate it when something happens. My smartphone terrorizes me. When the doorbell rings, it often means work for me.
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But if it doesn’t ring, that’s an even worse sign. Then you don’t need me. With my smartphone, I’ve sort of taken all the negative aspects of life, the stress, the constant self-comparisons, into my pocket.
I think most people are like me. But the life lies associated with it are just as big as the dependency on the smartphone itself. Many people claim that they keep their cell phones out of the bedroom. Hardly anyone freely admits that instead of a good book there is a smartphone on the bedside table. Nobody likes to admit that the smartphone is the first thing you touch in the morning and the last thing you look at late at night.
After all, you’ve already heard that cell phones make you sleep poorly. The blue display light supposedly suggests to the brain that it’s daylight so that it doesn’t release any sleep hormones.
Now I read in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” about a study in the “Journal of Sleep Research” that shows that none of this is true. On the contrary, the smartphone can have a calming effect in the evening. If it’s part of a bedtime ritual, allow the body to settle down and sleep better.
The smartphone tells a bedtime story. I would very much like to believe that.
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Unfortunately, my smartphone also tells me the story that I forgot to write that one important email again, or that I should still order this and that from Amazon. Then it tells me a few more tales of death, plague, and doom in the world in the news bulletin. Just to fall asleep.
I don’t know what other people’s smartphones are, but mine is evil and nasty. And yet I take it to bed with me. This relationship is so toxic that it’s actually funny that there aren’t any desperate love songs for smartphones yet.
More: According to Apple, Google also wants to limit tracking on Android smartphones