Cell fonTechnology?

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This article was originally published on August 3, 2018, by Popular Science, and is republished here with permission.

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In 2017, Microsoft founder Bill Gates revealed he had both age and habit-related rules for his three children. "We don't have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal," he told The Mirror,, a British newspaper. "[W]e didn't give our kids [cell phones] until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier." The rules about how long before bed phones had to be off probably wasn't popular either.

But the reasonings followed a similar pattern of logic: smartphones and related devices were useful for “homework and staying in touch with friends,” Gates said, but had the potential for “excess.”

The Gates kids may not have gotten cell phones until they were 14, but the average American gets their first phone at age 10. 

Today, 45 percent of teens say they are "online on a near-constant basis," according to a 2018 analysis by the Pew Research Institute. This, despite the fact that 45 percent of teens see social media neither good or bad and 24 percent see it as mostly negative.

And the statistics are just as bleak for adults. The average American spends 5 hours a day on their phone. That translates, according to one analysis, to touching, swiping, and tapping our phones 2,000 times between getting up and going back to sleep. Like a Lays potato chip, you can't "like" just once. While many adults need smart phones for work and other essential tasks, former Google employee Tristan Harris and his colleagues at the Center for Humane Technology modify their own behaviors by graying out their screens and turning off all (or all non-essential) notifications.

** Check the orig article from August 3, 2018, by Popular Science