This new research provides concrete evidence of what many have long suspected: People lose track of time in the bathroom when they have their phones, said Dr. Trisha Pasricha, the study’s senior author, a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
All this scrolling is messing with people’s health.
“The entire business model of these social media apps is to distract us, make us lose track of time and addict us to the algorithm,” Pasricha said. “We’re just now understanding how much smartphones impact lots of other factors in our lives.”
That’s fair. The more “engaging” something is, the more its effects may mirror that of something “addicting”. I’m also thinking about how engagement is a factor of addictive marketing.
The end result though, for me at least, is the same. If I’m engaged in my book, or addicted to my phone, I’m still sitting motionless, staring at a thing, and reading. The difference I suppose is on how hard it is to look away.
I’m glad this is the only social media I really use!