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Many of us are hostage to our mobile phones – who have captured us in a relationship that is not much different from having parasites in the body.
Lice, fleas and terminias have been companions of humanity throughout our evolutionary history.
However, the Largest Parasite of the Modern EraA is no invertebrate blood sucker. It is elegant, has a glass front and is designed to be addictive.
Your host? All human beings on the land that has a wifi signal, explains Rachel Brownresearcher at Australian National University, in an opinion article no.
Far from being benign tools, smartphones parasitize our timeour attention and our personal information – all for the benefit of technology companies and their advertisers, says the teacher of biological philosophy.
In a new one, recently published in Australasian Journal of PhilosophyBrown and his colleague Robert Brooks maintain that smartphones represent unique social risks, which gain a clear focus when seen through the parasitism lens.
But What is exactly a parasite?
Evolutionary biologists define a parasite as a species that benefits of a close relationship with another species – its host – while the host supports a cost.
Os head licefor example, they depend entirely on the human species for their survival. They They feed only on human blood And if they let go of your host, Survive only for brief momentsunless they are fortunate to fall on another human scalp.
In exchange for our blood, Lice give us nothing besides an unpleasant itch; This is the cost.
Os smartphones have radically changed our lives: from helping us sail in traffic to grender chronic diseases like diabetes, these small technological devices facilitate our lives – so much, that most of us rarely separates from them.
However, despite its benefits, Many of us are hostage of our mobile phones and slaves to scroll infiniteunable to turn off us completely. Mobile phone users pay the price with lack of sleeprelationships offline weaker and mood disturbances.
Not all close relationships between species are parasitic. Many organisms that live on us or within us are beneficial.
Consider the bacteria in the digestive tract of animals. They can only survive and reproduce in the gut of their host species, feeding on the nutrients that pass by.
But these bacteria Provide host benefitsincluding better immunity and better digestion. These advantageous associations for both are called mutualismos.
A human relationship-smartphone began as a mutualism. Technology has proven to be useful for humans to maintain contact, navigate through maps and find useful information.
However, they support the researchers in their article, from these benign origins, The relationship became parasitic. Such a change is not uncommon in nature: a mutualist can evolve to become a parasiteegg vice versa.
Smartphones as parasites
As smartphones have become almost indispensable, some of the most popular applications they offer their human hosts began to serve the interests of the companies that create them and its advertisers more faithful than those of its human users.
These applications are designed to influence our behavior, keeping us scroll, clicking advertising and fermenting in a perpetual outrage.
In addition, the data on our navigation behavior are actually essentially used for deepen this exploitationsay the investigators.
Your mobile phone Only worries about your goals of fitness personnel or with their desire to spend more quality time with their children to the extent that Use this information to adapt better and capture your attention.
Therefore, it can be useful Think of users and their mobile phones as similar to hosts and their parasites – At least in some situations.
Although this finding is interesting in itself, the benefit of seeing smartphones through the evolutionary lens of parasitism proves to be particularly useful when we consider where the relationship can evolve next-and how we can frustrate these high technology parasites.
Evolution shows that Two things are fundamental: The ability to detect exploration when it occurs and the ability to respond typically by removing “service” to the parasite.
A difficult battle
In the case of the smartphone, We could not easily detect exploration. Technological companies that draw the various features and algorithms to keep you on your mobile phone do not advertise this behavior.
But even if you are aware of exploratory nature of applications for smartphones, Answering is also more difficult than simply landing the phone.
Many of us are smartphone dependents for everyday tasks. Instead of memorizing facts, we transfer the task to digital devices – to some people, this can change your cognition and memory.
We depend on having a chamber To capture moments of life or even just to register where we parked the car. This both improves and limits our memory of events.
Os governments and companies they only cemented our dependence on our mobile phones, transfer the provision of their services For online through mobile applications. As soon as we take it on the mobile phone to access our bank accounts or government services, We lost the battle.
How can users then Correct the unbalanced relationship with your mobile phones, transforming the parasitic relationship into a mutual relationship?
Brown and Brooks suggest that Individual choice cannotin a feasible way, take users to this point. We are individually at a disadvantage Huge advantage of information that technological companies have in the arms race between host and parasite.
Thus, the fight against these parasites depends strongly on collective actions or governmental, such as the ban on social networks for minors that some governments have been promoting, the two investigators conclude.
