• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, November 16, 2017

Deloitte’s 2017 Global Mobile Consumer Survey of about 2,000 U.S. consumers confirms what we already know: that 93% of kids 18 to 24 years old have a smartphone,  which they check a mind-boggling average of 86 times a day. You, on the other hand, apparently check your phone 47 times a day.

The question is, why?

It's no secret that the mobile industry, especially Facebook, is essentially built around getting people to stare at their phones for a long as humanly possible.

As Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, told an Axios event the other week: “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'... And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever...the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and ... it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other ... It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

When I was growing up and telemarketers started calling during the dinner hour, it was a badge of civil disobedience honor to NOT get up and answer the phone (especially after voicemail became a thing). Yet some people were and are compulsive about stopping whatever they may be doing -- which is always more important -- to check and see who is calling them.

The perennial excuse is "it might be an emergency" -- but I suspect a darker compulsion to be "in the know" as early as possible. Even if it's just that the neighbors are having a tag sale -- the nerve!

So while it's easy to blame the tech industry for building devices, apps and content that can be addicting, in the same way we didn't get up from dinner, you need not check your phone every 15 minutes -- or, if you are a young adult, every fricking moment of the day and night.

I know I have done this.

I read a book a few years ago that said if you worked out really hard for an hour a day (and stopped eating pints of Haagen Dazs, 24-oz porterhouses and telling your internist "only two glasses of wine a week, really"), you could avoid a lot of the ill effects of aging. So I work out six days a week, really hard, at the local Y. Leaving the house, the workout, and getting back in front of my computer generally eats up two midday hours. During that time, I leave my phone in the car. (BTW, I am in the vast minority at the Y. Nearly everyone else has their phones on the workout floor, generating a few heated confrontations about tying up a weight machine while reading emails.)

So far my world has not come to an end because my phone was in the glove compartment for two hours. I haven't missed any work deadlines. Whatever stupid thing the Trumpster has done or tweeted is still there to be read -- and mourned ("Are you kidding me?"). No real opportunity has been lost, no memes missed, no bit of breaking news that would have caused me to stop lifting or spinning. The voicemails are generally spam or returnable within a few hours. The emails, while sometimes attempting to sound urgent, hardly ever are.

Now, if I was 17 years old and thought I might be missing a Snapchat nude selfie or that the whole rest of the school knew that Melinda and Roberto broke up last night before I did, I might feel differently about locking my phone away for a few hours.

The only bad part about not being always-on is that my wife thinks that since she sent the text 90 minutes ago, I should have read it then, acknowledged it and picked up dinner at the grocery on the way home. "Sorry, didn't have my phone on" draws the same aghast reaction as a 15th-century heretic suggesting it was time for the Catholic Church to get out of the indulgences business.

I am proof you can survive without constantly checking your phone. Who knows? That, too, may add years to my life.