Mobile phones can run your holiday – or make your day

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

The first thing that three-quarters of Irish people never forget when they’re going on holidays is their phone – because obviously the whole point of being away and relaxing is to be able to stay in touch with everyone 24 hours a day.

In fairness, I could more imagine going on holidays without the family than the phone – and yet I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t even have one in the house, never mind in a waterproof pouch in the swimming togs.

We’ve gone from being occasional phone-users to being slaves to the call – and of course the phone offers more than just a facility to talk, because it can also tell you thousands of things that you honestly never needed to know.

The same survey – an unashamed space-filler carried out on behalf of a healthcare company – found that 55% of Irish holidaymakers spend up to an hour each day updating their social media.

Sometimes that is probably nothing more than the pic of a pint on a poolside table, designed to show everyone back home that you’re having the time of your life – but it might equally be checking on the news or sport from home.

Of course, there are other reasons for using the social media side of your mobile phone and the Journal of Behavioural Addictions reported a separate survey, carried out at an anonymous university for reasons that will become all too clear.

That concluded that students who are glued to their screens make far more sexual conquests, with compulsive phone-users being more than twice as likely to sleep with at least six partners a year than their peers without an app addiction.

The surveyors surmised that this could be down to their ‘impulsiveness’ and use of dating services such as Tinder.

On the downside, these so-called phone zombies were also more likely to report heavy drinking, along with anxiety, low self-esteem and other mental health problems. They also got lower grades, which is hardly a shock given how busy they were on so many other fronts.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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