In today’s world, human addiction is not limited to substance use, in fact, the drug that’s on a rise is quite legal, and the one that is soothing all our pains instantly is none other than the smartphones in our pocket. Ever since the ITs of the world have convinced us that our smartphones and the use of apps are our basic needs, we have made them the center of our lives. Nothing is wrong, but the problem is any need or condition that turns into dependency, craving, or compulsive behavior makes it an addiction.
I say this confidently because someone who has gone through a brief period of mental health challenges in past can easily identify similarities between the prescribed neuroimmune drugs and the growing neuroimmune gadgets. The work of both is to passively shut our minds, shun our consciousness, and feed pre-designed information. Both roles are to act like chemicals to bring out the change in our bodies. The only reason our consumption of smartphones is not a hush-hush like mental health drugs is that it’s widely used and acceptable by society.
My personal observation says that most of our addictions start either from a place of discomfort or boredom. The urge to feel comfortable every single minute is compelling us to constantly seek things and experiences that can dissolve these feelings immediately for us. Our problem with discomfort is that it immediately says to us ‘ Stop feeling this way’ because it makes us feel inadequate, it rings the doorbell of closed doors of past fears and loss. So, when these inconvenient truth wants to come up, we either want to deny it or use something to block out the anticipated pain. To shut this pain, we either rescue ourselves to drugs or pop the culturally accepted red or blue pill of social media.
Another reason for people to pop the phone pill is to avoid the feeling of being bored. In these modern times, people found sitting quite without any movement are considered insignificant and unproductive. Walking through a room full of people is uncomfortable and so we cling to our phones to appear busy because being busy makes us feel valuable in the crowd. The truth is, boredom makes us feel the subtle pain inside us which is harder to conquer and seeing oneself break down to nothingness is something people want to avoid. Looking and sounding boring is uncool and unacceptable in our culture so we again pop the pills to look heroic and productive.
The thing is the quality, quantity, and types of pills available in the market as our basic needs don’t matter. What matters is our choice, our choice to not be immune or shun our real emotions. Or real thinking and feeling for our world, country, community, neighbors, family, spouse, and most importantly self. Our real choice of seeing others eye to eye and not screen to screen. The choice to search for the wisdom of the world through mind and not autosuggestions. The choice of not selling our awareness to drugs of the world.
