{"id":208370,"date":"2026-01-31T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/31\/we-have-lost-so-much-of-ourselves-to-smartphones-can-we-get-it-back-technology\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T01:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:15:10","slug":"we-have-lost-so-much-of-ourselves-to-smartphones-can-we-get-it-back-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/31\/we-have-lost-so-much-of-ourselves-to-smartphones-can-we-get-it-back-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"We have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones: can we get it back? | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones: can we get it back? | Technology<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/jan\/31\/we-have-lost-so-much-of-ourselves-to-smartphones-can-we-get-it-back<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-31 01:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n

I<\/span>n 2003, the Stanford social scientist BJ Fogg published an extraordinarily prescient book. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do predicted a future in which a student \u201csits in a college library and removes an electronic device from her purse\u201d. It serves as her \u201cmobile phone, information portal, entertainment platform, and personal organiser. She takes this device almost everywhere and feels lost without it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such devices, Fogg argued, would be \u201cpersuasive technology systems \u2026 the device can suggest, encourage, and reward.\u201d Those rewards could have a powerful effect on our relationship with these devices, akin to gamblers pumping quarters into slot machines.<\/p>\n

Four years later, Apple launched the first iPhone. At Stanford University, Fogg taught Behavior Design Boot Camps that Wired magazine called \u201ca toll booth for entrepreneurs and product designers on their way to Facebook and Google\u201d. There, Fogg proved his theory to be spectacularly true: portable computers really could be used to \u201cchange what we think and do\u201d.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, one of the main ways they do so is by compelling us to spend hours and hours in front of them. Today, anxiety around screen time is ubiquitous throughout the generations. Ofcom found nearly a quarter of UK five- to seven-year-olds have their own phone, with 38% using social media. But it\u2019s just as likely the oldies among us will be spending hours on ours. I was shocked to find my daily average was over four hours: mostly before and after sleeping, spent on news websites and YouTube.<\/p>\n

There is huge debate in academia as to the effect smartphones, and their social media apps, are having on us. While psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge argue that they make children more anxious, fragile and depressed, and amplify political polarisation, others, including Pete Etchells and Amy Orben, believe the evidence for this is thin.<\/p>\n

I am inclined to think the effect of Apple\u2019s…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones: can we get it back? |…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/91a23850d74db54ef4a1d10f2ab645424766f287\/0_1093_8360_6688\/master\/8360.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=d4bb07739e360acd7b16b18b552254f6","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208372,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208370\/revisions\/208372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}