From scroll to soul, a part of us is gradually becoming the whole. Rarely do we open our phone with a purpose and stick to it. Distraction has become a default setting and focuses on a rare luxury.

There are about one billion smartphone users in the world, and we check our phones an average of 150 times a day or every six minutes. According to the Pew Research Center, young people from the age of 18 to 24 exchange an average of 110 texts per day. Phone addiction has increasingly been recognized as a major problem. Studies have shown that many excessive phone checkers exhibit the same impulsive behavior as drug addicts.

Gradually, the customers are becoming the product. Social media platforms are designed to study behaviour to keep the user longer with the use of engagement-based advertising using psychologically persuasive techniques to convince people to spend a lot of time on these platforms and return the next day.

The battle of supremacy between the possessor and the possession: who is the real controller? It is obvious that the number of hours spent productively per day is influenced by the number of hours spent fiddling with our devices. The aftermath of this is that we now have a generation whose thoughts are influenced by what their device brings to them. A generation that prefers texting and updating status on social media to family bond. The slave we bought with our money has gradually become the master. The slave—our devices—are the major determinants of time wasting and addiction. Additionally, this excessive use is connected to a variety of mental and physical afflictions including anxiety, loneliness, eye strain, neck pain, et al.

But for how long?

A practical way forward is to be intentional about what you want to consume. Therefore, it becomes essential to set screen time limits and prioritize human-to-human interaction rather than human-to-device by introducing tech-free times to your lifestyle.

At the end of the day, if the devices are not mastered, they’ll quietly master us. The scroll must serve the soul – not silence it. In the end, the choice is ours. And so, the real question is: will we take back control?