You Love Your iPhone. Literally.

       I am one of 50million iPhone owners in the U.S. The allure of the phone axiomatic. My iPhone is extremely useful and entertaining, but that being said, I am not what you would call a "phone person". I couldn't care less if I was to  forget, misplace, or break my phone. I can go hours on end without checking it and still feel completely intact with society...I'm not rippin' out chunks of hair! When I lose my phone, the world isn't over, but I know this is not the case for many other Americans. I've witnessed on multiple occasions friends having mental break downs and panic attacks because  they are unable to check their phones. Even with my best friend; I find that she'll spend an hour on her smart phone checking Facebook and the "twitter" when we're quote on quote "hanging out". People spend more time absorbed in this emotionless piece of technology, than they do with living, breathing, and feeling human beings! We ignore our fellow man for a 2'' by 4'' glossy surface; encasing hard wiring and nano-chips, not a beating heart, not a compassionate soul, only 16GB and a megapixel camera. Phones must be on person 24/7 in order to keep today's society from losing their minds, this fanatical devotion to a  phone sounds an awful a lot like addiction. People LOVE their iPhones, so much so that their brains are responding to the phone in the same way the brain responds to love or compassion. The human response is not as much addiction as it is infatuation. So people, stop it with the kissy faces and googly eyes, put down the cell phones, and go outside; jump around, read a book, and interact with something that breathes oxygen for once!

      The article "You love your iPhone. Literally" by Martin Lindstrom makes it clear that the author is not part of the iPhone occult. Lindstrom is a branding consultant, one that has followed apple's progression from the very beginning. He has tried to determine why society is 'under the thumb' of the thumb-less apple iPhone. Lindstrom conducted numerous experiments to show how the iPhone is transforming the newer and older generations, "This past summer, I gathered a group of 20 babies between the ages of 14 and 20 months. I handed each one a BlackBerry. No sooner had the babies grasped the phones than they swiped their little fingers across the screens as if they were iPhones, seemingly expecting the screens to come to life. It appears that a whole new generation is being primed to navigate the world of electronics in a ritualized, Apple-approved way." He also found that when people are not with their iPhones, they go through what we would call separation anxiety. They feel stressed out, cut off, and un-whole. It's scary that a piece of technology can trigger such a emotional response, and have this much power over apple users. In the article, Lindstrom saught out to prove that iPhones are just as addictive as cocaine, alchohol, and videogames, but instead, he found that "addiction" may be the wrong word to describe society's obsession with the iPhone. The word to use is "love". "But most striking of all was the flurry of activation in the insular cortex of the brain, which is associated with feelings of love and compassion. The subjects’ brains responded to the sound of their phones as they would respond to the presence or proximity of a girlfriend, boyfriend or family member." Lindstrom's stance on the issue became clear when he wrote, "As we embrace new technology that does everything but kiss us on the mouth, we risk cutting ourselves off from human interaction." He encourages the readers to turn off the smartphone, buy some roses and a bottle of champagne, and find love the old-fashioned way....with something human. All in all, you should love your iPhone in the same way that you love a calculator, both are useful, but both aren't going to be your dates to prom. Flesh and bone are the way to go...end of story. 

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