Does your iPhone make you less social?


I should start off by saying that I’m not a terribly social guy to begin with. That might seem surprising with the multiple blogs, podcast, and all of that – but I normally keep to myself.

More and more, though, I find that I have my head down stuck in my iPhone – and it’s getting a little crazy. The other day my family was sitting down at a restaurant and I noticed that my daughter had her head down coloring the menu, my wife had her head down in her iPhone responding to a text, and I was trying to catch up on reader emails with my head down in my iPhone.

Obviously – this has to stop. So I’m going to make an effort to spend a little less time looking at my iPhone – and I may just flat out turn off “push” email…I’m really not important enough to need that – but I can’t help but check it every time I hear the “ding”.

My question to you, though, is do you do the same thing? Have you noticed that you spend more time looking at your iPhone than you do talking to people? I’ve even caught myself ordering without looking at the waiter because I’m face down in the phone.

I think I need help. 🙂

What about you?


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

4 Comments

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  1. I find I’m always checking my phone no matter what. Even in meetings (very discretely). I once had to leave my iPhone at home (it was charging) for about 3 hours, and felt absolutely horrible and disconnected.

    One friend’s girlfriend dropped his iPhone and broke it. He sat on his bed for about 2 hours just staring at it’s broken screen – he was dead silent.

    The device itself is so intuitive that it becomes almost all an extension of ourselves in as much that for the most part the data we want/need is always close at hand. I think that we develop a bit of neurosis around it, and that it’s healthy to at times just turn it off and leave it at home. This was never a problem with my old phone, but now, it’s almost frightening not to have it with me at all times.

  2. My girlfriend is actually jealous of my iPhone sometimes, ’cause it gets more attention than she does.
    I CAN STAND not having it either in my pocket or at arms reach. Sometimes I’ll pick it up, unlock it, flip through the ap pages then put it back down and not even do anything with it. I even do it while I’m driving, wait what?…did I say that?…

  3. So I have a group of 3 friends that I have dinner with at least twice week. All four of us are iPhone users, the other day while having dinner and waiting for the food to come out the four of us were sending text messages to each other at the table and not a word was said. I know that is sad, but it was alot of fun and the looks we got from other people were funny as well.

  4. I was listening to the radio the other day and this was the topic. Everyone was bashing on this one guy for always being on his iphone but they were not iphone users so obviously they would not understand everything that it does. I am always on my iphone and the same with my boyfriend. I used to be on it a lot more than I am now, I guess because I’ve had it for a while now. My boyfriends iphone dropped in an elevator and the screen cracked. I’ve never seen him so upset. We went out the same day and bought a new one for $499. I can’t imagine not having it with me all the time. I forgot it at home one day and it was all I could think about.