This document discusses both the benefits and drawbacks of mobile apps and smartphone usage. It notes that while smartphones provide convenience and connectivity, they can also be distracting and even addictive. Heavy smartphone use is linked to decreased attention spans and increased stress. The document also explores how smartphone usage varies between generations, with both youth and elderly adopting smartphones but sometimes facing difficulties. Overall, it examines the complex relationship people have with their mobile devices.

1. Mobile Apps —
Solution or Distraction?
Image sources via:
- Google Advanced Search Iphone
apps.
- Person using phone.
Image source via Flickr: Frustration by Sybren Stuvel.

2. Although they provide us with the ability to take control
of our lives, mobile applications on our devices exert
their influences on us, in more ways than one.
Image source via Google Advanced
Image search Iphone with pen.

3. Being exposed to the ‘new’ generation of cell phones
today, one would have difficulty remembering what this
recent and modern invention looked like, 10 years ago.
(Nickson, 2016, 1)
Image source via Flickr: Relics of a bygone
age- The World’s First Mobile Phone by: Paul
Townsend
The Evolution of Cellphones

4. • The smartphone is a pocket-sized PC that has dramatically
transformed how we receive and process information in a
digitally connected age (Phillips, 2014, 1).
Image source via Google Advanced image search Iphone 2016
Image source via Flickr: My Old PC by growdigital.

5. • Technology has made a big change in the history of
mobile phones transforming them into sleek, stylish,
attractive smart phones that have become a crucial part
of our daily life (Chowdry, n.d., 1).
• “Smartphones went from 10 percent to 40 percent
market penetration faster than any other consumer
technology in history (Weisberg, 2016, 1)”.
Image Sources via Google Advanced Search:
- Apple/Samsung Logo
- Phones

6. Along with being a source of entertainment, smartphone
applications provide users with instant updates about the
weather, nearby events, restaurants, your exact location and
even assists with managing your bank accounts, right at your
fingertips.(Uses of smartphone applications, 2008, 1).
Image via Flickr Weather app
by: Brownpau
Image source via Google advanced search mobile apps

7. “They can also make our lives a lot easier by increasing
our productivity and organization skills (George, 2011,
1)”.
Image source via Google Advanced Image Search Smartphone to do
list.

8. Smart Apps 
Mobile applications on smartphones provide users with
a dynamic network where people can connect,
communicate, shop, work, and entertain themselves.
Image sources via Flickr Iphone 4 Retinal Display Home Screen By: William Hook
Image Source via Google Advanced Search Iphone.

9. “Software companies and app developers are desperate to
grab our attention (Anderssen, 2014, 1)”.
Image source via Google Advanced Image Search Mobile applications
Apps—Changing the World

10. “In record time, our smartphones have become indispensable,
and as mobile technology has become integrated into nearly
every aspect of our lives, our smartphones are shifting from
device to dependency (Margalit, 2015, para 1)”.
Image source via eMarketer

11. “Smartphones are designed to get us to check them
repeatedly—new e-mails, text messages, and Facebook updates
beckon throughout the day, urging us to constantly pull the
device out of our pocket (Margalit, 2015, 1).
Image source via Flickr: National Cell Phone addiction—Taco Ekkel

12. Bridging the digital divide in
older adults.
Smartphone usage has been increasing in the older generation
as well. According to Kerri Flannagan the author of ‘Teaching
my 60-year-old father how to text’, “we get to see the
miracle of their cognitive development”, as they set foot into
the digital world (Flanagan, 2013, 1).
Image source via Google
Advanced Image search senior
using phone.

13. Although it may be beneficial, some elderly individuals
experience difficulties as the “screens are too hard to read,
the buttons are complex to manipulate, and the overall
experience for them is too overwhelming (Tynan, 2015, 1)”.
Image source via Google Advanced
Search Senior using phone.

14. The findings of a research study conducted by the University Of
Maryland brought to light the increasing reliance that the
younger generation has on technology and how it has become a
central part of their lives (Alleyne, 2011, 1)”.
Image source via Google Advanced Search
Teens using phones.

15. As such, many young people that took part in the study
reported feelings of mental and physical distress and stated
that they felt a sense of dependency, addiction and
depression upon trying to ‘unplug’ (Alleyne, 2011, 1)
Image source via Google Advanced
Image search Students on phones

16. “Three quarters of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds say
that they reach for their phones immediately upon waking
up in the morning. Once out of bed, we check our phones
221 times a day—an average of every 4.3 minutes—according
to a UK study (Weisberg, 2016, para 2)”.
Image source: Wikimedia commons person using phone in bed. Image source: Google Advanced Image Search reading in the dark.
Google Advanced Search Analog Clock.

17. “We are together, but each of us is in our own bubble, furiously
connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens (Turkle, 2012, 1)”.
All the same, some smart-phone users still feel
‘frustrated’ and ‘distracted’ (Weisberg, 2016, para 4)”.
Image sources via:
- Google Advanced Image
Source
- The Flight from
Conversation

18. Hooked on Mobile Phones
“With smartphones, the hands and mind are continuously
occupied texting, e-mailing, liking, tweeting, watching
YouTube videos, and entertaining ourselves (Weisberg,
2016, para 1)”.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons Social Media
Image source via Google Advanced Search
Google Advanced Image Search Using Phone on the Go.

19. “Researchers at University of California, Irvine found that it takes
25 minutes for workers to return to their original tasks after
being interrupted (Anderssen, 2014, para 21”
With growing volume of e-mail, texts, apps, phone calls and
social media alerts causing distractions, information
overload “cost the U.S. $997 billion in 2010 (Robinson,
Image source via Google
Advanced Image Search business
and technology

20. Further, a research study conducted by the Michigan State University and
the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory found that repeated interruptions
and intrusions decrease attention spans and increase stress by utilizing
mental and emotional resources, thereby resulting in mistakes (Robinson,
2014, para 3)”.
Image source via Google Advanced Search
cellphone distraction.

21. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, because of the
addiction to smartphones individuals are unknowingly reducing or
giving up “important social, occupational, or recreational
activities” (Fung, 2015, 1).
Image source via Google Advanced Image Search Cellphone
stress

22. “It’s so hard to resist the life that the social-media machine has
created for us, one in which we are both consumer and producer,
sharing generously of our own creative energy and expending our
attention in a self-nourishing loop, from which someone else—
Google, Facebook, Apple—plucks the profits (Anderssen, 2014, 1)”.
Image source via Google Advanced Image search Public
Cell Phone Use.

23. With software and mobile companies continuing to
produce and develop new apps and devices, it is
ultimately up to the user to utilize them wisely.
Image source via Google Advanced Search Cellphones in
school .

24. 5 Course Readings
Anderssen, E. (2014, March 12). Digital overload: How we are seduced by distraction. Retrieved May
27, 2016, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/digital-overload-how-we-are-
seduced-by-distraction/article17725778/?page=all
Flanagan, K. (2013, December 16). Teaching my 60-year-old father how to text. Retrieved May 28,
2016, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/teaching-my-60-year-old-
father-how-to-text/article15982827/
Fung, B. (2015, March 19). Why you shouldn’t confuse ‘nomophobia’ with an actual addiction to
smartphones. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2015/05/19/why-you-shouldnt-confuse-nomophobia-with-an-actual-addiction-to-
smartphones/
Margalit, L. (2015, November 04). Why We're Addicted To Our Smartphones, But Not Our Tablets –
Smashing Magazine. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/11/why-addicted-smartphones-not-tablets/
Turkle, S. (2012, April 21). The Flight From Conversation. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?_r=0
5 External Sources
Chowdry, R. (n.d.). Evolution of Mobile Phones: 1995 – 2012. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-mobile-phones/
George, P. E. (2011). 5 Multitasking Apps. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone-apps/5-multitasking-apps.htm
Nickson, C. (2016, March 22). Advances in Mobile Phones. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
http://www.atechnologysociety.co.uk/advances-mobile-phones.html
Phillips, C. (2014, November 20). How Smartphones Revolutionized Society in Less than a Decade.
Retrieved May 29, 2016, from http://www.govtech.com/products/How-Smartphones-Revolutionized-
Society-in-Less-than-a-Decade.html
Weisberg, J. (2016, February 25). We Are Hopelessly Hooked. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/25/we-are-hopelessly-hooked/

25. Alleyne, R. (2011, April 19). The young generation are 'addicted' to mobile
phones. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8458786/The-young-generation-are-
addicted-to-mobile-phones.html
Robinson, J. (2014, October 28). There Are Always a Million Distractions.
Here's How to Silence the Noise and Pay Attention. Retrieved May 29, 2016,
from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236395
Uses of Smartphone Applications. (2008). Retrieved May 31, 2016, from
http://science.opposingviews.com/uses-smartphone-applications-13119.html
Tynan, D. (2015, March 20). The Simple Smart Phone for Seniors: Neither
Smart nor Simple Enough. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/the-simple-smartphone-for-seniors-neither-
smart-114070767939.html
2 Billion Consumers Worldwide to Get Smart(phones) by 2016 - eMarketer.
(2014, December 11). Retrieved May 31, 2016, from
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/2-Billion-Consumers-Worldwide-
Smartphones-by-2016/1011694