EENHANA – A lady immaculately dressed in a slim fit dress revealing her body contours, high heels and stocking walks along the main street of Games Complex towards Games shop in Oshakati. In her hands are a set of car keys, a smartphone, which has earphones plugged into her ears, laptop bag, a tablet and a latest iPad.
As she strolls the second multi-tasking city of Oshakati at Games complex, she is nearly run over by vehicle at a corner intersection, because she is not paying attention to her immediate surroundings. Welcome to the new age of technology where people own more than one gadget with all or almost the same functions. Many people can access or afford these technological gadgets. Some are not content with owning just one cellphone or tablet.
What is fascinating is a report by the United Nations (UN) that shows that six of seven billion people in the world have cellphones, while only 4, 5 billions have access to a toilet. So technically more people have cellphones than toilets! New Ofcom, an international telecommunication research company reveals the extent to which the world has become addicted to smartphones, with people confessing to using them everywhere from the dining table to the bathroom and bedrooms. Does it make sense to own both smartphone and iPad? Is it that one wants to use both of them or is just for show off or status? “I have two phones because I want to use both of them. I am a businesswoman and I try to be reachable as much as I can because I don’t want to lose any business,” says Amutse Johanna, who owns an upcoming car sale and a saloon in Oshakati town.
However, many people interviewed says they own two phones because one was strictly business and other one for trivial issues such as social networking and “miscellaneous”.
“With this Facebook and WhatsApp thing one cannot afford to have one phone. The battery would be dead within some few minutes and I cannot afford that,” another Oshakati resident, Victoria Shikongo says.
Some women suspect that their husbands were cheating when they use two or more phones. “He has two phones. He runs his own company and is very busy so I guess it makes sense to carry two just in case he needs to be on the phone with one and text or e-mail on the other. But someone told me that that’s a sign that he is a cheating and a user. He has one phone for me and the other for whoever else he is dating,” says a 20-year-old girl who only identified herself Josephina.
For students and those in colleges and universities, addiction and dependency on the most sophisticated of communication systems (computers, tablets and smartphones) decreases academic performance, face to face communication, social relations, causes psychological problems and sometimes results in death, research by addiction specialists Dr Garikai Moyo has reviewed.
Dr Moyo says some people experience withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, insomnia and depression, which are typically associated with substance abuse.
Most of the younger generation and college students are highly dependent on computers, smartphones and the internet. They spend most of their time engaged with these man-made machines. Some of the younger generation forgets their surroundings and they are not comfortable enough to make conversation with their own friends.
Because of high dependability on modern communication devices, the number of car accidents has also increased. Many people have complained that some of their mates are spending most of their time on these smartphones instead of their daily house chores.“Food is burnt, irons overheat and the house is not tidied up whilst my maid is on the phone,” said one employer who did not want to be identified.
By Clemence Tashaya