Seeing the world through our mobile phones?

What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? What is the last thing you do before you go to sleep at night? Yup! First thing I did was check Facebook and Instagram to see what’s happening around me, even though last night, before I went to sleep, I did the exact same thing. It’s scary to think how addicted myself and many others are to our phones.

Take a guess, how many times a day do you check your phone? I bet most people (especially Millenials) would say around fifty times. If you need to find out any information then what’s your first port of call? For me it’s my phone. There are so many reasons why we turn to our phone, however, it is reducing the amount of social contact we have. Instead of asking someone around us, it’s easier to just Google the answer on your phone. We don’t even need to meet up with our friends to stay in contact. We know exactly what everyone is doing just through the exchange of a few text messages.

But, are we living our lives through our mobile phones? Everywhere I go my phone is either beside me, in my pocket or in my bag. Whenever I lose my mobile phone I feel as if I’ve lost my left arm. The smart-phone dependency is a growing phenomenon. With upgrades coming out faster and faster, phones now include more features and expectations are growing. Phones can do everything these days and we expect them to! We can even pay using phones now – it really is having the world at your fingertips.

However, next time you go out, look around at how many people are on their phones. You go to a concert or out for dinner and everyone is absorbed by capturing the moment on their phones. Either that or they are not talking at all and just looking at their screen. Everyone wants to share what they are doing on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, whilst checking what everyone else is doing – it’s like a sort of contest of who has the best life.

There was a world before the ‘check in’ button on Facebook. We all need to ‘switch off’ and simply enjoy the moment instead – stop seeing the world through our screens and see the world through our own eyes. Let’s capture the moment by living in it.

So, you’re probably wondering what this all has to do with marketing. From a marketing perspective, due to the ever-growing dependency on technology you need to be social media savvy nowadays in order to succeed. It is a new platform through which marketers can reach their customers and sell their services. Social media and social networks are designed to connect people, so you should use all the technology available to you to create your own opportunities and make your own connections. This is where a lot of your attention and effort can be focused – to maximise customer reach and generate new leads!