 Nine years ago on June 27, 2007 the first smartphone was born. Steve Job's technology giant, Apple, came out with the first generation iPhone which little did he know would change the course of social interaction in human history. Stemming from the birth of the smartphone came a wave of new ways to connect over the internet making the world an increasingly smaller place. Through social media people from around the globe could connect with one another at just the touch of a button, but what no one could predict the addictive nature these social media platforms would take on. Now nine years later, it is impossible to walk down the street in any city without being surrounded by mindless men and women ceaselessly staring into the five inch screen of their phone. The world becoming a smaller place has always driven innovation but now without the need to look someone in the eye and have a conversation humanity finds itself in a crisis which needs to be averted, we have lost one of the key aspects of human life, the ability to socially interact with one another.

A hauntingly revealing video published in August of 2013 takes a look into a day in the life of a modern day young woman who puts her phone away and steps back to take in the world offline. Charlene deGuzman's video, "I Forgot My Phone" shows YouTube viewers that when you look up from your phone to actually take in the world around you there is no longer anyone left to share in this experience. The obsession with constantly taking pictures and having to see where everyone you know is at all times brings to light the fact that no one is truly anywhere but online. In an article written by Nick Bilton, an award winning New York Times columnist, titled "Disruptions: More Connected, Yet More Alone" he analyzes the social context of this video and goes as far as interviewing Charlene deGuzman. When asked where the idea for her video came from she answered "I came up with the idea for the video when I started to realize how ridiculous we are all being, myself included, when I was at a concert and people around me were recording the show with their phones, not actually watching the concert" (Bilton). This observation by Ms. deGuzman can be related to by every person who owns a smartphone and has been to a concert in the last few years. No one goes to a concert and watches the performance they just share their experience on Snapchat and Instagram for others to watch through their phones. Bilton goes on to recognize the importance of Ms. deGuzman's video stating that "Ms. deGuzman's video may have landed at one of those cultural moments when people start questioning if something has gone too far and start doing something about it" (Bilton). This observation was made due to the fact that in the weeks following the "I Forgot My Phone" video the Unsound music festival in Poland banned fans from recording the event, saying it did not want "instant documentation" and distractions that might take away from the performances. Viewers of "I Forgot My Phone" quickly realize the emptiness of the lives many people in this generation live when they do not look away from the screen of their phone. 

The greatest impetus towards the smartphone addicted modern society besides the actual invention of the Smartphone is inarguably Mark Zuckerburg's creation of Facebook. Facebook now not only controls the most widely used social media platform but also the third and fourth most used social media platforms in SnapChat and Instagram making it the most powerful corporation on Earth. Worldwide there are over 1.59 billion monthly Facebook users (zephoria.com), that is 21 percent of the world population. This enormous social networking platform connects people from every corner of the globe and has become the most addictive aspect of the internet. Rebecca Hiscott, an editorial fellow for the Huffington Post, wrote an article titled  "Why You Feel Terrible After Spending Too Much Time on Facebook" looking into research on Facebook's psychological effects. In one experiment by Austrian researchers Christina Sagioglou and Tobias Greitemeyer, the researchers asked participants to indicate how much time they had spent on Facebook that day and then rate their mood. A second study by the Austrian researchers, with a separate group of participants, asked one group of people to spend 20 minutes on Facebook and another group to spend 20 minutes browsing the Internet without visiting any social media sites. A third control group was given no instructions at all. After the given time the participants were asked how meaningful they found their time spent online. "It appears that, compared to browsing the Internet, Facebook is judged as less meaningful, less useful, and more of a waste of time, which then leads to a decrease in mood" (Sagioglou and Greitemeyer). After examining the two studies on this topic Hiscott stated that "both studies, which involved more than 300 English- and German-speaking participants, found the same thing: People felt worse after using Facebook, because they believed they weren't using their time meaningfully" (Hiscott). This research points to the direct link between Facebook and a decrease in mood, this is caused by the piece of human nature that social networking has slowly been chipping away, face to face interaction.

The internet is so expansive that virtually every piece of information that has been cataloged in human history is available in seconds thanks to the smartphone. Although there are so many reasons as to why this advantageous it is also extremely dangerous. The speed at which information can be gathered has effected the way humans think and absorb information starting with one of the most important human functions, our ability to read. Nicholas Carr, an accomplished technology author and Pulitzer Prize finalist, published an article for the Atlantic in 2008 called "Is Google Making us Stupid". In this article Carr examines the terrifying effects of this new found ability to access information at lightning speeds and its effects on human psychology. This ability has changed the way people read, absorb information and even perceive everyday life. To illustrate, Carr states that "[he] can feel ... an uncomfortable sense that something has been tinkering with [his] brain ... remapping the neural circuitry ... [he's] not thinking the way [he] used to think ... [he] can feel it most strongly when [he] is reading"(Carr). This eerie realization brings readers of Carr's article face to face with the reality that our ability to access information is drastically changing the way the brain works. Attention spans are lessening, Google is making it harder to sit down read entire pages of information almost causing a wide spread form of ADD. For example, "The net is becoming ... the conduit for most of the information that flows ... into the mind" information now comes so fast Carr compares it to "once [being] a scuba diver in the sea of words ... but now [he] zips along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski" (Carr). The discovery that the speed at which information is found is the root of the problem facing society is momentous. This path to faster and faster access to information is a sinister one and is laid out in Google's "easy assumption that we'd all be better off if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence" Carr fears that humans will think that "the human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive" (Carr). The fact that Google can make such a comment without a response from humanity calling for a change in its reliance on the super company Google boarders on appalling. It is not to late to turn back from the habits that are causing these changes on the brain all it takes is for mankind to put down the smartphone and instead of constantly browsing web pages, half reading for information, pick up a book or look up the needed information in a library. 

Not only have the smartphones damaged the social ability of mankind, remapped neural pathways changing the ability to absorb information but they are damaging children. Many argue that there are serious advantages to smartphones in the classroom citing the many educational applications that are available on the internet. Concordia Online Education states that "All in all, there are more than 1.2 million apps available, over 10 percent of which are said to be educational or reference apps" (Concordia Online Education). Although this is true and many of these applications can be beneficial in the classroom it cannot be ignored that the distractions involved with smartphones in the classroom far outweigh the advantages. Concordia goes on to observe that "Smartphones allow for social learning ... smartphones can allow students to work in groups on projects, sharing information and discoveries" through social media platforms (Concordia Online Education). This argument only feeds into social media's control over the lives of technology users and reinforces the power that these big technology companies have over our everyday lives from our free time all the way to our education. There are terrifying results in the research into the true effect of technology on children. From their cognitive function to behavioral problems it has been found that technology is negatively effecting the worlds youth. One such investigation conducted by graduate students at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Hospital in Munich, Germany studied the effects of phone usage on adolescents measuring neural activity in two and thirty six children heavily exposed to phone usage versus an equal amount of children children who were not. The graduate students concluded that "[they] have observed that some changes in cognitive function, particularly in response time rather than accuracy, occurred with a latency period of 1 year and that the changes were associated with increased exposure" (Thomas). The graduate students found that children with exposed usage experienced a one year delay in the advancement of cognitive function showing that increasing phone usage in school would seriously damage children ability to learn.

Adding to the list of dangers in phone usage across the globe research has found that the titanic role played by phones in every day life not only effects the human brain at a psychological level but also poses a physical threat as well. Dr. Pauline Anderson, a general practitioner, describes the hating results of research done by Lennart Hardell and his team at University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden. Harder developed and experiment in order to find whether or not humans were at risk of brain tumors when using a cell phone for more then ten years. Anderson described the importance of this experiment stating that "The recent worldwide increase in use of wireless communications has resulted in greater exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields ... the brain is the main target of RF-EMF when these phones are used, with the highest exposure being on the same side of the brain where the phone is placed" (Anderson). This increase risk of radio frequency electromagnetic fields has promoted a proven increase in the risk of brain tumor growth. Through Hardell's research his team concluded that "the risk for glioma was tripled among those using a wireless phone for more than 25 years and that the risk was also greater for those who had started using mobile or cordless phones before age 20 years" (Hardell). This conclusion by Dr. Hardell explores the physical dangers of cell phones to the human body and gives a warning to put down the cell phone or face dire consequences. 

The smartphone combines with the new ability to access information at such lightning speeds has created a new step in the evolutionary process. In each new step of evolution throughout human history one of man's most unique traits is drastically changed and today humanity is rapidly approaching another step. The potent combination of the phone and internet has so drastically changed communication, information processing and learning that the human brain is literally changing, neural mapping is shifting completely from where it was just twenty years ago. Examples of this can be found in everyday actions and habits. To illustrate, In 1990 when a sick person went to the doctors office in the waiting room they would speak to other patients or read, now this situation does not exist. Patients take our their phone and stare into the mini Apple computer that fits in everyones pocket. Men and women have not just lost their ability to socialize but also their ability to just sit and be alone. On a college campus no one speaks when walking to class, no one looks at the beauty of a South Carolina Spring day or a Carolina sunset. "Carolina sunset" can just as easily be Googled and observed from bed, the fact that this has become an acceptable substitute is the center of the dire problem facing society. Human imagination has been decimated, the arts have fallen from grace and modern writing has become coarse and informational versus the beauty of prose in the early twentieth century. The need for imagination cannot be overstated, it is one of the most paramount of pieces that makes up the miracle of humanity.

Since 2000 cellphone and internet social media companies have become the biggest

sectors of the United States economy, but not without a cost. By looking at the numbers, the

amount of time U.S citizens spend staring at their phones and scrolling through Facebook is 

appalling. This titanic time consumption has begun to have sinister effects on cognitive function

as well as social skills. This effect on learning is only compounded by the constant feeling of

emptiness due to the obsession with social media websites like Facebook. In a study done by

Australian researchers it is illustrated that there is reason that after spending vast amounts of time

scrolling through endless pages of useless information we feel so empty. Perhaps the most

important revelation of this investigation is the effect of smartphones on children. The time spent

staring at four inch screens is having a direct effect on the way that the worlds youth develops.

Cognitive abilities have gone down exponentially with the increase of data usage. How can it be

ignored that the adolescents of the world are even being effected by he plague of cell phone

usage? The responsibility needs to be  put on parents to ensure that their kids do not waste away 

their childhood staring into iPhone games rather than playing outdoors. Children have lost their

sense of imagination because the internet does it for us, Youtube takes us to other worlds rather

then our own minds. This is the most important facet of this research, we cannot lose that innate

human ability of imagination. Starting from the youngest generation we have to take a step back

and look at the effects that the internet and smartphones is having on the human psyche.

