I love my iPhone. I love being able to access my email anywhere. I love being able to look up any information I need on the web. I like listening to podcasts while I travel and do the gardening. I even like the odd game of solitaire.
There are of course some downsides. Smartphone users are absolutely lethal when you're out running. They are usually in their own little world, wandering all over the pavement and totally unaware that a runner is approaching at a speed where avoiding a random-walker is not so easy (even at my speed).
But the saddest thing I have observed is that parents out walking with their infants or pushing them in buggies are most often either talking on the phone or consulting the screen for some other reason. Communication with the child is zero. Playing with the child is non-existent. Surely the whole purpose of taking your child for a walk is to communicate and have some fun together. (I remember many tired Sunday mornings when that was not exactly easy, but once started the fresh air usually worked wonders!) Are we in danger of bringing up a generation who have been neglected for a phone? How sad is that?
There are of course some downsides. Smartphone users are absolutely lethal when you're out running. They are usually in their own little world, wandering all over the pavement and totally unaware that a runner is approaching at a speed where avoiding a random-walker is not so easy (even at my speed).
But the saddest thing I have observed is that parents out walking with their infants or pushing them in buggies are most often either talking on the phone or consulting the screen for some other reason. Communication with the child is zero. Playing with the child is non-existent. Surely the whole purpose of taking your child for a walk is to communicate and have some fun together. (I remember many tired Sunday mornings when that was not exactly easy, but once started the fresh air usually worked wonders!) Are we in danger of bringing up a generation who have been neglected for a phone? How sad is that?
