The mobile phones, especially smart phones, are useful devices when used well.
It is commonplace nowadays to do all sorts of things on the internet, which I would like to group as communication, information, education, entertainment, etc.

However, with the easy availability and accessibility of smart phones, especially to the young ones, the explosion in the number of social media fora, and the amount of time we spend around our phones, the writer fears that smart phones have either taken over control of most peoples' lives or they will do so very soon.

I know many ordinary people who would turn around to go back home should they forget their phone at home. I use the word 'ordinary' to imply individuals whose work or business are not phone related and who could do without theirs phones for some hours.

The phone seats like a passenger in the front seat of most cars. We work the phone while driving, eating at home, lying down, even in the toilet. Accidents occur every day because somebody was on the phone while driving. I have had a guy ram my car rear because he was on the phone. A second guy cracked my rear bumper because, while engrossed with his phone, he did not notice that traffic had stopped momentarily.

Even as an adult, it takes a lot of will power to ignore the numerous alert tones from various chart groups and social media: Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. How much less the younger ones.

Smart phones have deleterious effects on those who cannot let them out of their sight. In the classroom, if the teacher does not have a phone use policy, students steal glaces here and there to check and respond to messages. There is distraction, addiction and decline in interpersonal interaction. Most people have become lazy as they invent short cuts to the full spelling of the English words in their phone messages.

The reading culture has lost out to smart phones. I doubt that a few modern boys and girls have read or heard about the the Pacesetters, Chukwuemeka Ike, Flora Nwapa, Ekwensi, and the African Writers Series. Granted more modern authors have come up who write about contemporary issues, but how many of us, for pleasure, finish a book in two weeks.

Nowadays, there is family Whatsapp chart group, office chart group, union chart group, etc. It is like an unseen force is ever pushing us to take a peep each time an alert comes in. Recently, I had to opt out of a group chart somebody included my number because it became a source of constant distraction. The ladies in the group hijacked the forum to post sissy stuff most of which I found irrelevant. I found myself having to delete some 30 to 45 messages in less than an hour every time.

The point of this post is to alert us to the possibility that if we do not take drastic measures, we may find ourselves enslaved by the smart phone. Such measures may include trimming down the the number of social media and chart groups we subscribe to. Put in place a phone use policy for ourselves and for everyone in the house. Instead of spending long hours on the phone for issues not academic or task related, one can pick up a novel, newspaper or magazine. It is not too late to start.