Smartphones Benefit, Threaten Lives

 

Smartphones, first introduced about nine years ago, brought a sensational wave as they became introduced to the world. It enabled people to access their necessities on their phone without having computers or other electronic devices around them. As these kind of convenience increased, people got more and more attached to their phones and now, all you can see are people’s eye tied to their smart devices.

The attachment between people and smartphones are bringing great threats such as car accidents and deaths. While riding the car, you are able to see people texting and calling while walking or even driving. Even though using phones while driving is prohibited by law, many are careless.

Recently, many accidents such as car crashes increased.  Road regulators suggest that large causes of the accidents are smartphones. According to TheGuardian.com, using a smartphone while driving decreases the speed by 37.5%. Moreover, NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) announced that deadly accidents increased 8.1% last year.

The Mainichi Daily News announced that 60% of surveyed people said that they had walked into somebody while using their smartphones. Also “research showed that 18 people fell off platforms while using smartphones.”

Moreover, research and many videos to warn pedestrians and drivers, are going around the Internet. Websites such as YouTube show many videos relating to smartphone accidents. One of the clips shows an experiment done by National Geographic. The National Geographic team sent out a person with a gorilla costume on to see how many people noticed it. All the others were able to notice the gorilla right away, but all the smartphone users didn’t notice the gorilla and walked right by it. This proved how much people are distracted while they were using their phones. Even calling someone affected the person’s concentration to look around.

Kevin Park, a sophomore at John Marshall High School, told JSR, “I have bumped into people using their smartphones and I do believe that smartphones are a great distraction to people.”

Smartphones are very beneficial to society, but if people continue to look at their phones while driving or walking they will eventually get into life-threatening accidents that will hurt or even disable them. In order for people to live a joyful life, they should put their smartphones in their pocket and use it when they are in a still and safe place.