Smartphones are getting smarter, even as their users turn dumber by the day. And just like everyone, even you probably think that this widely acknowledged observation doesn’t apply to you. With you, we don’t really mean you, exactly, or so you might want to think. We’ll see. We are, however, addressing a wide majority of people who have given in to the convenience that these digital assistants bring along, and in the process, have sent some really important sections of their brain on a long holiday.
Sure, there are people who are still making the most of these electronic minions for better efficiency, while still doing certain things the old way to keep the cogs in their cranium well oiled. But most aren’t. And there is about an 85% probability that you belong to the wide majority, a reasonable chunk of whose grey cells have gone dormant. Don’t agree with us? Take this apparently simple, but scientifically devised test by Gizmoids, and see if you score well enough to be among the very few who have not succumbed to the overpowering lure of a Smartphone’s convenience.
Keep a pen and paper handy, and choose your answers before you scroll down to the key. Remember, this test is for your own good, so no cheating. And be brutally honest!
- Don’t use a calculator to answer this one, and you shouldn’t take more than ten seconds to answer this one.
What is the remainder of one hundred ninety three divided by 13?
Did you take more time than suggested to get the answer?
Yes / No
- What was the last time you drove or navigated to an unfamiliar, reasonably difficult to reach place using a GPS navigation device? Would you need to ask someone for directions while going to the same place again all by yourself?
Yes / No
- Who’s your second closest friend? You don’t have his number memorized, right?
Yes / No
- Do you sometimes think that you can’t focus long enough on a given task as you once did? Do you find your phone notifications distracting at work? Does that screen flashing every 30 seconds make you feel less efficient? Remember, be brutally honest!
Yes / No
- Do you think that the use of smartphone has eaten into the time you used for future planning, thinking deeply, introspection, or motivate yourself to a new goal? If you think that time has reduced by more than 50% just because you keep browsing through webpages, run apps or playing games, the answer has to be a yes, otherwise it has to be a no
Yes / No
- Do you sometimes feel bad if the image you uploaded on Facebook or a similar social network doesn’t get the kind of response you anticipated?
Yes / No
- Do you sometimes think that you have expended the past few minutes checking notifications, messages, e-mails or something similar while there wasn’t anything new or significant there?
Yes / No
- Have you recently forgotten the name of a celebrity or a friend that you’d never have imagined you’d forget? You tried hard, but you couldn’t recall that name without some external help at that moment?
Yes / No
- Have you had trouble spelling some long, relatively lesser used words which won’t get autocorrected?
Yes / No
- Would you say you read things in much less detail (non-fiction books, long-form articles, editorials, exhaustive reviews) than you did before you started using your smartphone extensively for browsing?
Yes / No
If the answer to 1 to 2 of those questions is a Yes, you are doing just fine – there’s nothing we need to tell you. Oh, and congratulations for having just won the challenge, and leaving us egg-faced.
If the answer to more than 2, but less than 5 of those questions is a yes, you are showing early symptoms of smartphone addiction and beginning to align your flesh-and-bones self with your digitized image. Thankfully, your liking for screens hasn’t turned into an addiction yet. You can take some preventive measures right away to ensure your analytical ability, aptitude and long term vision doesn’t get jaded by this obsession.
If, however, you answered in a yes to 5 or more of those questions, you’ve turned a rat to that electronic Pied Piper of Hamelin. You are using your smartphone far more frequently than necessary, and in the process, have lost a bit of your mental ability. It’ll be much harder for you to re-adopt a natural, healthy and balanced lifestyle, if you ever think it’s important.
Flunked badly? Fret not, help is just a click away. Here’s our guide on how to perform a digital detox therapy in five simple steps. But before you proceed to read about the remedy, don’t forget sharing this one-of-a-kind test on the Internet with friends and family you care for. Use our one click share icons to spread the awareness. Oh, and don’t forget sharing your scores and views with us using the comments section below.