How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Smartphone

In an opinion piece published in The Crimson this April, Leah J. Schulson ’14 wrote of her increasing worry over the seemingly endless fascination, even addiction, of our student body for powerful smartphones that seem to dominate our lives on a daily basis. It is the “noise of the internet” which has come to drown out those aspects of present life that cannot be systematized and digitized. This rise of technology, then, leads to a corresponding fall in the quality of social interaction.

Assuming that this premise is true, there are two possible responses.

The first is that of the technophobe, who would rather give up technology to a certain extent in favor of a higher quality of “real life.” As a community, this might be characterized by the banning of laptops from certain major classes, or, for an individual, giving up the benefits of a smartphone.

It is immediately apparent, however, that such an approach is shortsighted in scope, and unsustainable in the long run. But the issue with burying your head in the sand is not that it will result in being left behind in understanding what devices can do, remaining ignorant of countless outstanding possibilities. Instead, it is the ability to manage and account for the role of technology in life that suffers.

Never before has there been such a ubiquitous access to information as there is with the smartphone. And, with devices like Google Glass on the horizon, we can only expect the amount of information we have readily available to increase further. The technophobic attitude perfectly captures the transition into the steep learning curve that all of us, the first wave of digital natives, are being forced to undergo.

That learning curve is not in grappling with new ways to become maniacally dependent on our connectivity to survive but rather in training and educating ourselves to best utilize the ocean of information that is available and to control the excess noise that can indeed distract from our daily experiences. It is not a question of shutting ourselves off from such a powerful tool. In fact, to do so would be impossible. Instead, we must work toward integrating technology more seamlessly into our everyday lives to the point at which the novelty of it all but disappears.

In their book, The New Digital Age, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen envisage a day in the future when technology is so seamlessly integrated into our daily lives that we barely notice that it is there. True, it will be more powerful, being able to cook you breakfast and to select an outfit for the day, and the distractions will also, by extension, be all the more potent. But invisible tech will also free up all the time spent currently wasted performing basic “surface” tasks and give us the time and energy to more completely devote ourselves to those parts of life that really require our attention—be it hanging out with a friend or going to class.

As Harvard students, we like to be informed, connected, and up-to-date almost all of the time, and ideally more so than anyone around us. Right now, the smartphone represents the best and fastest way for us to achieve those facets of our competitive nature we hold so dear. The distractions we see clearly now will fade away as technology necessarily becomes faster and more invisible. But until then, rather than avoid it, we should embrace the opportunity the smartphone offers us to learn, adapt, and prepare for the future.

William H. Locke ’15, a Crimson editorial writer, is a government concentrator in Cabot House.