What are the harmful effects of excessive use of mobile phones?

Life before smart phones

Hello every one- today I want to start with a small story. In 2007, I finished my MBA and after that I joined McKinsey as a consultant in the New York office. I was working there for two years and during those two years, we'd be working day and night. 12-14 hours or sometimes even longer every day. And the point is — even though we were working long hours, we used to work with intense focus. There was very rarely, I don't remember ever, while working checking my phone or social media. In fact in those days we didn't have social media. So I was able to give it full and complete focus and every day I used to get massive amount of work done. Then 2009 I quit McKinsey. I joined an investment firm, private equity.

Why smart phones are called silent killer

And just a couple of years later, I started noticing that I was no longer that efficient. Things were taking lot of time. I was not reading as much - maybe the number of books I used to read had gone down dramatically. Life was just not moving forward. I was just not getting that feel that - in those days I was so focused and I used to do so much. I started feeling that sense of loss. Something was missing. And then when I started realizing, I started noticing, I realized that the problem was smartphone and the online distractions.

What is the problem

Today I understand exactly what happened and I'm going to put before you a very bold proposition. Which is that Distraction= Death. Now of course, it doesn't mean literally death. But from the point of view of our intellectual development, from the point of view of our career, having a happy satisfying meaningful life, I want to make a bold claim. That digital distraction=death. And let me try to persuade you and convince you of that. Now let's think about what happens when we are distracted because of our smartphones and online news and social media and whatsapp and Instagram.

When we are caught up in this whole web, what really happens is we are not able to stay with one thing. We're trying to do some work, trying to type an email, and after 5 words we feel like we need to go and check whatsapp. We come back and then we say- oh let me just check my email. We are constantly jumping around from one thing to another to another. We are just going round and round like a monkey. And this thing, it may look like ya, it's not a great thing. But it doesn't look like - this is not death. But let me tell you why I say that. Let me ask you this — what is the downside, what is the damage from being distracted continuously? Most people would say, it wastes time. Which is true.

But I would argue, that the time you waste is the smallest of all the damage it does. Yes you waste a lot of time - but, there are a lot of other things that happen which are massively - I would say which are much more harmful. As an example, let's say you spend half an hour or say one hour or two hours every day on Whatsapp and Instagram. Okay, those two hours are gone. But what also happens is, every time I'm trying to type an email or do some work, in between I switch.

When I leave my work and go to Instagram and come back what happens? It disturbs my mind. Now when I come back my mind is still there is still something in my head. I may retain something from my Instagram checking. Or from my whatsapp. Our mind carries some attention residue. And if we keep checking these things continuously, our mind will never be- we will never be at peace. It will never be calm. There will always be turbulence. It will never be quiet.

What is the role of focus in our life.

We will not get great ideas. We will not be able to focus. That is the reason why we constantly want to leave what we're doing and check our phones. Focus is the fundamental ability that allows us to do good things. Doesn't matter how smart you are. You may have scored high in the most difficult exams, somebody might have done well in IIT, IIMs or degrees from anywhere in the world. It doesn't really matter.