Recently, I've seen a surge in the ability of smartphones to improve the quality of life for people dealing with all kinds of life problems from tedious wait times to social isolation to attention deficit disorder to adjustment to aging. Clearing away the smoke from the old worries about addiction to smartphones, they really do serve some healthy purposes. (Personally, I think if you have an addictive personality, you can get addicted to almost anything... ) This is one of those times--during a hot, dry summer of odd comings and goings in in my own life and those of others in my local and extended community--that I want to take time to discuss media, other than books, as self-help.
I've had my first generation iPhone since November 2007, when I moved my psychology practice to full-time. Since then I've had the opportunity to observe the evolution of the smartphone's use from a novel luxury to a common individualized tool (are you hardware-dazzled Apple or software-canny Android? Are Blackberries more your style, with their tangible keyboard, even though they may or may not work properly at all?) Do you mostly call, text, email, or play games on it?
Some people are holdouts to the smartphone, citing cost of the data plans. But I suspect some of these are the same people who avoided pagers in the 1990's and cell-phones after that. Many like their freedom and independence, and see increased capacity to communicate as a tether on their spirits. Indeed, using the location-based social networking tool Gowalla, I was able one day recently to determine that my esteemed colleague and office-mate Tim Ketterson was lunching about a mile from me, and lured him to a Starbucks in between for coffee and brainstorming. My smartphone has definitely eliminated some professional isolation for me.
When my days are very full--and most of them are--I can be late going to fetch a client from the waiting room. More than half the time, I find them engrossed in some reading on their smartphone. After I get their attention, they glide past me with a look of importance, deftly turning the magical thing off and seeming to switch seamlessly to I'm-going-into-my-session mode. I have to say here that something wonderful has happened over the past several years: people have learned how to turn their cell phones off. (What a frequent disruption that used to be, right in the middle of a psychotherapy session!)
This leads me to the subject of smartphones and distractibility. If we think of attention deficit as a problem that occurs on a spectrum from mild to severe, even many of us in the very mild range--especially empathically-attuned and/or novelty-seeking type personalities--benefit from externally-set-up cuing to return our focus to where we want it to be. Alarm-setting, scheduling, meditation apps with count-down and bell timers, texting, easily readable 'pushed' pop-up messages with priority predetermined by the user are all tools smart phones allow us to personalize with remarkable effectiveness in most cases I've seen. If there is too much else on your phone that is time-wasting and does not recharge you in any way, you can delete it. Use good sense.
Decreasing social isolation is a significant function of the smartphone, done judiciously. I only became a Facebook user myself about a year ago, having been influenced by nebulous--but common--fears about being a therapist who can be contacted via the internet. (Like most therapists, I don't friend my clients on Facebook, but sometimes do so through LinkedIn, the professional social networking app.) Most smartphone users I know use the Facebook app to stay informed about the status of their friends, as well as interests and activities of acquaintances they might grow closer to. As in the illustration I gave earlier, the apps Gowalla and Foursquare, partly by publishing through Facebook, provide the additional advantage of being able to keep informed about the interesting, or shared, whereabouts of friends you might want to meet up with informally. In contrast to predictions of Facebook mainly causing people to spend a lot of time on people they don't really care about, even some places of worship are finding Facebook makes members more comfortable and familiar with each other by using the organization's Facebook page and friending each other. They are becoming more like the beloved communities they were intended to be. Through the smartphone, the walls of these groups can extend even farther out into real life.
I am beginning to see elders buying smartphones, which can help with the above problems (difficulties with memory and attention and social isolation being until recently much more common among the elderly.) Many, of course, don't hear well, and writing is a more effective form of communication. Making writing mobile, and using Mobile Me or Google Calendars can assist the whole family in working with each other to coordinate care. Until someone with Alzheimer's forgets how to operate the phone, they can carry one themselves.
There is a learning curve to using this mode of communication. Often we must face fears of loss of autonomy and privacy in a realistic manner. For example, don't 'friend' anyone you don't want following you in some way. Also, always check the default privacy settings on each individual social networking app and reset them if necessary so that you are sharing your whereabouts intentionally.
This trend toward mobile information-sharing is not going to cease. According to Craig Silverstein--Google's first hire--and whom I recently heard speak to his hometown audience here in Gainesville, if you are not carrying a smartphone now, you will have some sort of PDA by five years from now. People are seeking information on-the-go more and more. So how can this technology best help each of us? As was always the case, we must seek to understand our own individual needs and, perhaps, be bold in trying new ways to meet them.