Alienation from Leisure: Smartphones and the Loss of Presence

ABSTRACT

Smartphones have exacerbated the devolution of humans’ ability to maintain presence, or the practice of being aware of what is happening while it is happening in all manners of their lives, especially in their leisure. Further exploration is needed to understand the numerous, diverse, and nuanced ramifications smartphones have on our health and well-being, especially as it relates to our leisure experiences which tap into a sociocognitive system of behaviours that require our full attention. What remains underexplored is how leisure experiences are trivialized, minimalized, disempowered, and adulterated by the omnipresent interloping of the smartphone. Is our pervasive use of smartphones disconnecting us from our leisure? This think-piece examines how the omnipresence of smartphones in our lives leads to a loss of presence and the potential for alienation in our lives and leisure.

RÉSUMÉ:

Les téléphones intelligents ont exacerbé l’amenuisement de la capacité des humains à maintenir une présence, ou l’habitude d’être conscients de ce qui se passe autour d’eux lors de divers pans de leur vie, en particulier dans leurs loisirs. Une étude plus poussée est nécessaire pour comprendre les nombreuses, diverses et nuancées ramifications des téléphones intelligents sur notre santé et notre bien-être, surtout lors d’expériences de loisirs qui requiérent le recours à nos systémes socio-cognitifs comportementaux, ce qui nécessite notre attention tout entiére. L’un des thémes restant sous-explorés en ce qui concerne l’expérience de loisirs est la façon dont celles-ci sont banalisées, minimalisées, déshabilitées et falsifiées par l’omniprésente interférence du téléphone intelligent. L’utilisation généralisée des téléphones intelligents nous déconnecte-t-elle de nos loisirs? Ce document de réflexion examine comment l’omniprésence des téléphones intelligents dans nos vies conduit à une perte de présence et posséde un potentiel d’aliénation dans nos vies et loisirs.

KEYWORDS:

• Leisure
• presence
• alienation
• smartphones

MOTS-CLÉS:

• aliénation
• loisirs
• présence
• téléphones
• intelligents

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Also see Rose and Spencer (2016) who asked important questions related to the concerns around the surveillance and immaterial labour of social media networks.

2. Asurion, a private firm that seeks to help infuse technology more effectively into businesses, found that Americans checked their phone 96 times a day in 2019 (which is approximately once every 10 minutes; Asurion, 2019)

3. Problematic smartphone use is used to describe the phenomenon of maladaptive behaviours with regard to using smartphones, including ‘excessive use, impulse control problems, and negative consequences’ (Panova & Carbonell, 2018, p. 252). This terminology represents the ongoing concerns over the addictive-like qualities that smartphones have but there is yet to be clear evidence to support the use of a smartphone addiction framework.

4. It should be noted that this research has been hotly debated across the academy with some scholars voicing concerns that the significance of findings is not necessarily adequate for drawing conclusions that smartphone use is linked to depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents (see Ophir et al., 2020). The original authors submitted a corrigendum in 2018.