Smart phones are one of the most addictive things you could give to children! Forget gambling, cigarettes and alcohol! Phones are the completely next level in their addictive and manipulative nature and yet parents hand them out to their kids without a thought!
Why does a primary school student need a phone? Are their lives so hectic that they need to ensure they’re reminded of their next appointment coming up on the calendar? Do they need to be in constant communication with ‘head office’ so that the mission critical operations of the day’s play with Jimmy is guaranteed 99.9% uptime? To be perfectly honest, children don’t need phones at all. This is a massive failing of parents today who have either convinced themselves that they’re doing the right thing by giving their child a phone to ‘keep them safe’ or massive marketing and peer pressure from other children, parents and social media for which resistance is futile. Whatever the deluded rationale behind it is, it’s just wrong. Phones are dangerous, addictive and manipulative devices which are clearly contributing to the increasingly poor mental health of children today and their inability to cope with so many situations that can’t be resolved instantly. Since this is so clearly self-evident, what don’t parents just cut to the chase and give their kids a nice big plate of cocaine to snort. Same basic effect: addiction, behavioural change and damage to mental health. For what are they waiting? They’re already creating dependencies and junkie type behaviours so, rather than doing it slowly over years with a gateway addiction, why not just cut to the chase, cut some lines and make it happen?!! Whilst some people may think this comparison is over the top, I’m not the first person to make this comparison, nor will I be the last, so let’s look at it in some more detail. Do any schools allow, smoking, drugs or alcohol to be consumed on site on a daily basis? In my experience, no! This will get you suspended or expelled, yet it’s common practice for students to be using their phones constantly throughout the day. Using a smart phone and all the buzzes and bings, notifications and ‘rewards’ which come from using it and giving it your attention all the time releases dopamine, which makes you feel good and re-enforces the behaviour surrounding the activity which just gave you that hit. Other than turning people into wandering zombies, what’s this constant deluge of notifications, stimulations and reliance doing to children? Although it’s still only early days of this phenomenon, studies have shown that it’s further lowering children’s attention span, manipulating their daily activities and behaviours and reducing their ability to cope without constant stimulation and activity. Add this to the already challenging teenage years of relationships and body image and let them get bombarded by fake images of fake people throughout the world. You’re just setting them up for further trauma and mental health issues from which people are finding it more difficult to recover. Is this what parents think is a good way of keeping their children ‘safe’? It seems rather idiotic to me and so far removed from any notion of safety, you may as well just get them hooked on a few random drugs instead and therefore save everyone a huge amount of time as the damage will occur far more quickly and efficiently. The next cry will be from parents for schools to conduct ‘phone testing’ to see if their child’s phone is ‘safe’ to use. Therefore, taking yet another step away from actual useful action and taking responsibility for themselves to not give their child a phone to begin with. The actual danger and long-term damage associated with giving children smart phones, far outweighs the potential risk of their not having a phone so they can be contacted 24/7 ‘just in case.’ Generations of children have survived throughout the ages and managed to find their way home every day without the use of mobile phones, ride-sharing and GPS locationing, yet some parents would have you believe that the world is far more dangerous than it’s ever been and justify giving their child this dangerous device out of ‘safety.’ The fact is that in this situation, the phone, what it does and what it can access is the real risk and is doing real harm to children and adults alike. The random gangs of child kidnappers in white panel vans from whom parents are believing they are protecting their childing, are predominantly the perceived risk in the modern world and an extra-ordinarily rare occurrence. Yet parents seem willing to give their children smart-phones which open the door to a highly addictive, manipulative and unfiltered adult world, that’s far more dangerous and destructive at home than it is for their children to go down to the park or ride a bike with a friend or two and be ‘unsupervised’ and ‘out-of-communications range.’ If you’re really worried about the roaming white panel vans, perhaps paying for some martial arts lessons is a far better investment than the phone. We’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg for this problem. It’s impacting student behaviour, and engagement as well as their mental health and well-being. Schools and teachers are now being expected to clean up yet another mess which is not of their making. However, until parents realise the difference between the real risk of giving their child a smart-phone versus the perceived risk of not giving them one, it’s going to be a hard uphill battle ahead. Some further interesting reading on the subject: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/ https://www.promisesbehavioralhealth.com/addiction-recovery-blog/new-studies-compare-smartphones-cocaine-addiction/
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The other day, there was a breakthrough news story about the current virus that’s spooking and wreaking havoc across the world. It was the findings of a team of Australian scientists who had discovered the way in which the body’s immune system fights the Corona Virus. The virus is fought in a similar way that the body fights the flu. This is a huge, positive discovery in the fight against the virus. However, it seems to have drowned in the flood of toxic waste stories about the doom and gloom of the virus that’s making great headlines for all of the ‘news’ providers around the world.
Now I don’t want people to think that I’m flippant or dismissive of the virus. The challenge of its containment, the impact on older people and pressure this is putting on healthcare workers and services is real. We still need to put this into perspective in that most people are recovering from it and this story of the discovery by Australian scientists is a wonderful ray of hope. There has been an irrational response by many people across the world, with panic buying and weirdass behaviour. This has seen some extremes of people stopping doing everything and cutting themselves off completely on the one hand and people taking no precautions or mitigating actions on the other. Essentially, the situation is not good, especially economically, but it’s also not as bad as bubonic plague. So why, when there’s good news and when we know the situation will ultimately improve, are so many people panicking and worried? Firstly, people are generally not good with change and this has been a massive and sudden change to our way of life. For some people, there will be no real impact on their lives. For others, it will do massive economic and psychological damage. Some will catch the virus and be ok. Others will catch it and unfortunately, they won’t recover. Other than the flood of news stories which would wear down even the most resilient of us, the fact is that something like this forces people to confront their own mortality. This is something which is uncomfortable and people don’t want to do. People think they have plenty of time and for most people they do. However, this means most people don’t confront anything to do with their own mortality until much later in life. Now this global pandemic which has killed many thousands of people in a short period of time, has brought this home to people. The resulting panic of those who aren’t able to put some perspective on the situation is toxic and contagious in itself. Once a few people panic and face their own mortality, this quickly catches on to others and has thus spread quicker than any virus in history. The world will get though this current crisis. The world will survive, as it did the plague, the Spanish flu, polio, smallpox and countless other pandemics. In times of panic and uncertainty, it’s always good to look for the positives and the wins such as the discovery by the Australian scientists. We should also be thankful and more appreciative of the life and the time we have on this earth. Far too many people take this for granted and when confronted with something such as this and their own mortality, they panic and are unable to put anything into perspective. This is by no means an easy situation and we face tough days ahead, but despite that, there is hope. With the advances in technology and medical research that’s already been done, there will be a treatment/vaccine and or subsidence of this virus and the world, whilst having changed somewhat, will get back to somewhat normal and perhaps the ultimate opportunity out of this crisis will be that nations can put their differences aside and work together for a common global goal that impacts and improves everyone’s lives. For some great news on the research so far: https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/research-how-bodys-immune-system-fights-coronavirus-covid-19/12059266?pfmredir=sm https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/doubt-over-contracting-coronavirus-covid-19-twice/12075878?pfmredir=sm With the current global virus worries, there’s been a dramatic shift in people’s approaches to work, shopping and education. Now I’m not going to comment on the virus itself, because everyone in the world seems to have already commented and these range from everything from good, preventative measures to mass fear and panic.
However, the net result is that many people are now working from home. Over the past few years, businesses have tried this for some of their staff and shifted their opinion and approaches back and forth depending on who’s running something and how much control they need over their employees. One place I worked, the director there was so paranoid about people potentially not doing things, there was no way anyone could work from home, ever. He would rather have (and did have) countless people sitting in the office chatting and doing nothing, than the fear of letting someone work remotely and get the job done in half or even a quarter of the time. Now admittedly not everyone can work from home, nor should they work from home in many roles. However, there are many people who can and the office these days for many is just a luxury, indulgence, or historic relic of working days past. If you have any sort of administrative role, tech-role or anything which can be done via a phone, video or computer, then the ability to work remotely makes perfect sense and can save a lot of time, energy and pointless expense. If I look at some of the work I do when organising a program, it’s 95% able to be done remotely. When I run a program, I need to be there in person throughout. However, let’s look at the other side and the things which can be done from anywhere and anytime. Whilst I’ve been doing a lot in person, setting up lots of meetings and travelling a lot, these meetings can often not have a great purpose other than building relationships, an aspect which is also very important. However, once you’ve built a number of relationships, there’s no pressing need to have regular meetings in person and much of what can be achieved in an hour-long face to face meeting, could be done in a 5min phone call. Whilst this isn’t anything new, I’ve found that due to the sudden change of work recently, my commute has been reduced from about 1.5 hours a day to nothing. This gives me another 1.5 hours to either do something constructive or go for a run or do something more interesting than sitting in traffic and getting frustrated with slow drivers. The sudden departure of tens of thousands of people from our cities was notable the other day when I was driving out of Sydney during peak hour and not getting stuck in traffic at all. Now the downside is that there are many businesses relying on the passing traffic for coffee, lunches and retail trade, but this sudden shift in work patterns, could help re-shape much of the workforce into a more remote pattern. Other businesses would adjust to this and be able to build sustainable revenues from this too. We’d reduce the amount of traffic and pollution and possibly improve people’s social time and lives due to the reduction of stress and the hustle and bustle of getting to the office. The world will continue to virtualise many more offices and roles, of which this massive dislocation has given us a glimpse. Whilst we don’t want to create societies and workplaces without social interaction, what this sudden change has shown us, is that there’s another way of working and this is increasingly likely to be the case into the future. With that virtual work, it can be just as, if not more effective and productive, than the traditional, ‘go to the office’ style of work-life to which so many people are used. It does rely on trust on both sides of the equation, but once you’ve been able to step over the precipice and see that it works, you’ll wonder why you didn’t try this years ago. For me, I find I’m far more efficient when working remotely and get about 5-10 times more things achieved than if I were at work in person. Whilst I have a great time at work catching up with people, it’s not very productive. Being able to plan and work virtually, as well as occasionally in person, is a great way to be predictive and effective in what you do and getting back at least 7.5 hours of commute time a week is a welcome benefit to achieve. This is much needed time for all those hours of waiting in queues to panic-buy pointless crap that you don’t need for an apocalypse that isn’t going to come! Remember, wash your hands and keep a good social distance from others. If you’re sick, then self-isolate and get yourself checked out. At the moment, the world seems out of control. A virus which we’d never heard of before appeared suddenly and is wreaking havoc on the lives of billions of people throughout the world. International travel has stopped, restaurants, cafes and shops have closed. The once busy streets are silent and businesses have retreated to operating as a distributed network of people work from homes around the world. For even the most resilient and flexible of us, this is a challenging situation.
However, despite this global dislocation, there are some key things we can do to turn this crisis into an opportunity and I don’t mean setting up bootleg gin joints and secret bars called cougheasies! For many, it can feel as if we’ve completely lost control of everything. However, that’s not the case. I don’t for one minute underestimate the challenge we’re facing, both medically and economically, but if we only focus on what we can’t control, like all of the masses of people gathering on the beach in a huge disregard for the social distancing rules, then we’re doomed to end up depressed and destroyed as a result of this current global crisis. This is not the first massive crisis in history, nor is it the worst, nor will it be the last. But for many, it is the most challenging thing that has happened to them in their lives and the lack of control over events that have just suddenly consumed the world can be really hard to deal with. The fact, however, is that we can’t control most of the things which happen in our world anyway and the more we focus on what we can’t control, the more difficult and frustrating it becomes for us, as the risk is that we will become angry and resentful. We’re seeing that now with people in shopping centres taking their anger out on people who are doing their best to serve the community. If you’re the type of person who gets angry over a supermarket employee over the lack of non-essential items like toilet paper, then you’re a selfish idiot. You clearly struggle with all sorts of other things in your life already. However, toilet paper obsessed idiots aside, the fact is that if we only focus on all of the negative news stories, over which we have no control, it’s going to make it harder for us to get through and come out of this in a good way. Rather than looking at and focussing on all the things we can’t control, use this as a great opportunity to focus on the things we can control. We can control how we treat others. We can control how we approach each day. We can control our own hygiene and social interactions. If we have the technology, we can setup and can control our own workspace. We can also control how we look for opportunities in this crisis. What goods and services are needed now? What skill set do you have to be flexible and adaptable to be able to help? What service gaps are there in the community? Are there vulnerable people or groups you could help to support? Is this the greatest opportunity in years to be spending more time with your family, playing board games and talking and sharing this time together? Rather than becoming frustrated by everything that’s wrong, much of which there certainly is at this point in time, by focussing on what we can control, this gives us an opportunity to examine our busy modern lives and see what’s really important to us and improve our ability to not only get through this crisis, but to come out the other side stronger and more resilient to take on whatever else is thrown at us into the future. Over the next days, weeks and months, what’s your focus going to be? |
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