Overuse/Misuse of Smartphones and Family Disintegration

Abstract

Technology, with all its paraphernalia to facilitate and empower humans in every possible manner, is in turn taking its toll on human life today. Assessment of our surroundings present its newest little weapon called smart phones and they are the for-runners in the digital technology’s benign ambush on our lives. Smartphones are amazing as they feature both multipurpose and multitasking activities. Our friends, family, and colleagues seem to expect to be able to contact us at any time, whether across town or across the globe. They are ‘available’ and accessible at any time in class, while walking, driving, eating, and to the extent that they get in the way of our relationships, making it impossible for us to sincerely devote our attention to the present moment. We become irretrievably wrapped up in our digital lives, prioritizing the virtual world over anything else especially our families. These varied app based smartphones have become the perpetrator of communication breakdown within families: couples are breaking up, the parent-child bond is destabilizing and generation-gap is widening, leading to utter deterioration of social values. Relationship is hard to maintain when the phone keeps distracting us with beeping alerts, notifications and email reminders. Hence, the present study is an attempt to explore how smartphones are creating communication breach resulting in disintegration of familial ties. The situation is alarming as over-use of smartphones is not only hazardous to health but has taken the form of addiction and we might have to pay heavily if we do not take preventive measures in the coming times. The paper has also been furnished with some hands-on recommendations and corrective measures to curb this behavioral dependence syndrome and stop its eroding impact on our most reliable support system; our families.