Our Smartphones Are Manipulating Us
With constant beeps, alerts, and notifications, our devices form comforting bonds that keep us reaching for them. Daily smartphone use is increasing worldwide, especially among young people. This trend has led to bans on phones in schools across Canada, the United States, and other countries.
Activities such as social media, gaming, streaming, and interacting with AI chatbots all demand our attention. However, to understand the deeper issue, we need to focus on the phones themselves.
The Phone as an Animated Being
In my new book, Needy Media: How Tech Gets Personal, I explain how smartphones—and more recently smartwatches—have become almost like living companions. These devices form bonds by recognizing our presence and responding to our bodies.
Equipped with numerous technical features that target our sensory and psychological vulnerabilities, smartphones create a sense of comfort that encourages constant interaction. The emotional signals built into these devices suggest they require our attention, while in truth, they are collecting our data.
- Face recognition
- Geolocation
- Touchscreens
- Vibration alerts
- Sound notifications
- Audio and motion sensing
Each of these features alone might not create a deep emotional connection, but together they make the phone an intimate, sensitive, and almost knowing presence in our lives.
"Packed with a growing range of technical features that target our sensory and psychological soft spots, smartphones create comforting ties that keep us picking them up."
These emotional cues are designed to draw our attention, masking the true function of these devices as data harvesters.
Summary: Smartphones have evolved into emotionally engaging devices that manipulate our attention while quietly collecting personal data.