Eyes down, minds elsewhere, ‘deadwalkers’ are among us

Hello everyone!

Here is a new topic: Eyes down, minds elsewhere, ‘deadwalkers’ are among us. Please read and comment on that.

Thank you!

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/eyes-down-minds-elsewhere-deadwalkers-are-among-us/2015/09/27/a3ad1da2-51bb-11e5-8c19-0b6825aa4a3a_story.html

Cellphone no longer should be considered as a digital device to us but kind of portal to virtual world we live in. We're gaming on the net, communicating with friends in social networks, leaving our comments on the blog and paying for anything we need, and doing business via email. There's a common fact that we cannot live without it- the second place to physical society but more important world to everyone. That explain why we easily ignore the startling increasing numbers of accidents in the streets caused by we paying much attention to our mobiles.  Because it has been now a necessary part of life, if you agree with me on the point, so the problem is not about addiction we have , instead, the complex situation we're currently concerned about is how to manage our behaviour in physical life and digital society and what can we expect to do in different places? Fortunately, the virtual world allows us to define online and offline activities by ourselves.

Cellphone as a cummunicative device plays a remarkable role in our contemporary life. There comes a more and more common phenomenon that people walk distractedly staring at the their cellphones.To speak frankly,cellphone,Ipad and some other mobil digital devices make our life more convenient,on the hand,people have been especially keen to communicate on internet.It is hard to say that digital devices destroy people's conventional lives,but we can ask how we can keep the nature of communication when we face more flexible and complicated tools.The true problem is how can we keep our subjectivity during the development of society.Cellphone should be served as a pure tool,not a tool constituting the alienation of a person himself.

After reading the article, I thought of what one of my colleagues said the other day. What he said is there are more and more "dead parents" now sitting beside their kids as companions with their heads down playing cellphones all the time. The "dead parents" here echoes pretty well with the "dead walkers" in the article.
As we become busier for work, we have less time to accompany our kids and parents. When this a reality we have to deal with, what we can do is to improve the quality of accompanying. How to improve? No cellphones, so no distractions. This is what I have been trying to do. For instance, I set the rule for myself, everyday after I get back home from work, it is the time to spend with my daughter until she goes to bed, so no Wechat, no text messages and no email during that period of time. I'm still working on that though. However, I'm confident that as we become more aware of how the mobile devices are distracting us from our normal life, we will set rules for ourselves and the situation will get better.

The word “deadwalkers” let me associate with another word “Phubber(Phone+Sunbber)”. An increasing number of deadwalkers and pubbers cause accidents frequently and arise people’s concern. Everyone knows the danger of eyes fixating on the phone while moseying however no one can help doing that. How to stop or avoid it when warning is not working anymore? Is it urgent and necessary to be involved in traffic regulation? As it’s known to all, calling or texting while driving will be fined RMB 200 and deducted 2 scores according to Chinese traffic regulation. The same can be used for deadwalkers. Also let’s look ahead a big picture. The farthest distant in the world is you play the cellphone while we sit together. Phubbers are easy to isolate themselves into cellphone world. They are unwilling to communicate with friends even their parents. It will be more horrible that a car accident

I'm very impressed by the words "zombie-like creatures". Yes, indeed. We saw a lot of people playing with their cell phones while they were walking. Actually, I was one of them, who was very obsessed by the smartphone as it seemed to be able to do all kinds of activities to kill the time. Using the words "zombie-like creatures" to describe such kind of people is very suitable as while playing with the phone, those walkers have no consciousness of anything. They have no feelings, they have no awareness, they don't know what just happened around them as they were too distracted by their phones.

We can't deny that the present high-tech informational society do bring us a lot of efficiency and development, but we are also gradually becoming the "slaves" to the high technology. As I learned that more and more people only paid attention to their phones when they had the gathering, or there was a news which talked about a young mother who was too concentrated on her phone so that she even didn't notice her 4 years old daughter fell to the floor from the shopping mall's escalator. And there are a lot of such kinds of news we could learn everyday from all kinds of newspaper or television.

We really need to put the phone away somehow to re-think about what's the most important thing in our life? Entertainment? Killing the time? Having fun through the games? etc... With the rapid development of the current society, maybe we should slow down a bit and enjoy the view of our surroundings and the time for being with our family, friends and others. I agreed with professor Ali on "doing one thing at the time". Then we could really focus on that thing and make incredible achievement of it. So let's try to put our phone down and just enjoy the view while we are walking...

We are in the information society, the development of science and technology enables us to know the information from all parties through various channels.Information service for the society is a meaningful thing, but because of the use in the wrong places, which makes it become a rather regret thing.
To use electronic equipment in the process of walking is an extremely harmful thing, China is a country with frequent traffic accidents, traffic accident death rate has been rising in recent years of the world.
How to avoid such adverse phenomenon to popular trend?
Firstly, strengthen social introduction and advocacy
Through the media,the government should make correct propaganda and guidance, emphasize the dangers of incorrect use of electronic equipment, improve the safety of the public consciousness, set up the concept of value life above all.
Secondly, strengthen traffic violation penalties
At present, in terms of penalties and execution, there is a larger hole.Good system also needs good execution.If we cannot stop this kind of behavior in time, it can cause the spread of the unhealthy practices.
In short, the use of electronic equipment represents the development of information technology, it brings some social illness, such as: traffic safety hidden trouble, people communication barriers, etc., it’s the time to arouse people's concern and avoid the tragedy .

Don't know since when people start to pay more attention to mobile devices than people around them. Even when family and friends get together, young people keep their eyes down and staring at mobile phones, checking messages constantly. This phenomenon is becoming such a social problem that even commercials are now calling for the youth to put down mobile phones and pay more attention to the old. Indeed, mobile devices bring convenient communication and immediate information to people, however, is all the news pop up necessary to us? As the article indicated that many traffic accidents had happened due to the ignorance to the vehicles when people checking information on mobile devices. Shall we take safety risk for such meaningless messages and news? Obviously, the answer is no. Everyone knows it, but how to get rid of this bad habit is somewhat a psychological problem.

It is tragedy that some people got killed by accidents caused by indulgence in cellphone when crossing the road, while I think, the worse fact is that we can’t focus on what is happening around us anymore. We are always told not to play cellphone when walking on the road, but we just can’t help ourselves from reading the message from friends or checking latest news issued in social media. Even though the accidents are not occurring every day, it is a great waste of time for people to spend so much time on social media instead of real socialization and activities. Experience and enjoy the real moment of time and live under the sunshine is the true way of living.

With the rapid development of society. Most of us think multi-task can help them to save time. Then they can do more work. But Against what has been wishing for. Things go contrary against one’s wishes. Decline in work efficiency more waste of time. When we get a new email, we subconscious to watch our cellphone, regardless of whether it is important. It cause some dangerous.
Data explosive growth, we must focus on what we really need. Otherwise we will drow in an ocean of data.

It’s true that more and more people get addictive to the cellphones and all kinds of screens current days. The trend is the same even in teenagers and kids. During rush hours, radio broadcasts notice like “please look out the steps and don’t focus on the cellphones”. However, no matter on the escalators or stairs, over 80% of the pedestrians is still get distracted by the cellphones from time to time. Most people, if forget the screens at home, become uncomfortable throughout the day with a feeling of lose something. I used to be part of those people. Until one day, I was super busy and didn’t open the cellphone the whole day. I suddenly realized that it is absolutely fine to live without the smartphones. I can still get the key information and handle the daily routines. Without smart phones, I get more opportunities to meet the others or talk in person. I don’t force myself to click the new messages to remove the red points. The experience of jumping out of the constraint of smartphones for a while is great!

Every coin has two sides. Smartphone bring us convenience and distract our normal life. In this article, no focus put people in dangerous situation, like deadwalkers on the street. The distraction is far more than that. Our eyesight and cervical vertebra will get hurt due to long time on smartphone. It also has a negative effect on people communication and makes us colder and colder like machine exchange information through verbal message. So, the person who is immersed in smartphone is deserved to call ‘Zombie’.

Mindfulness is what we are looking for in the midst of busy life which is fully covered with all sorts of distractions like the technological devices, personal distractions and even wandering thinking. We are now living under a society which advocates efficiency and effectiveness in a timely manner, therefore the only criteria that judges our performance is productivity, which means, only the more output you produced can prove you efforts and contribution. We, then, gradually stick to be more multitasking to pursue more outcomes to be done. While our mind, at the end of the day, would still be kept in a quite complicated and chaotic status. No doubts that there are so many negative thoughts even psychological symptoms have aroused our concern. They are mostly initiated from the mindful distractions. What we need to do is that skim our travelling thoughts to one single piece of thought and stick to it, which do generate inner wisdom.

.

It's truely dangrous to use cellphone or other mobile devices when walking down the sidewalk or drving on the road, even something unexpected may happen in our homes with cellphone in our hands firmly. And this article seems to tell us that technology is a good servant but a bad master.

In reality, we are almost accustomed to be a "deawalker", how can we deal with the situation? For instance, when we are walking down the sidewalk or crossing the street, we should be aware that an accident will probably happen if we fail to notice the cars or buses moving around us. To make things simply, we should be clear that the possibility of accidents is high at that moment,and what should we do is to look around the traffic situation and make a judgement. Afte all, we ought to care ourselves more both in physical safety and mental health, and any mobile devices are just the tools to achieve it.

Addiction to the phones and tablets is just like any other kinds of addictions that it consumes lots of our energy in a bad way. Phone is supposed to make life easier for the instant communication and messages or news access. But the more we rely on the phone, the more we’re deprived of freedom of choice. People are addicted to the phone use making it a dangerous thing especially when you’re walking on a busy transportation street. We put ourselves at risks when every time eyes down, minds elsewhere and striking ahead with no caution of the surroundings. If you can reduce the reliance on the electronics, I suggest you should do it and find new alternatives other phones to make yourself comfortable.

The phenomenon has become something serious related to our daily life and work. We are increasingly getting accustomed to touching the screens of mobile phones unconsciously when meeting with friends, having dinner together, and so on. We need to refocus ourselves on sensing the current moment that is happening, rather than responding to the distractions frequently coming into the mobile devices.

We need to set up strict rules to restrain the use of mobile devices. The mobile devices should work essentially as a digital assistance instead of a master of our mind. Therefore, setting up the mobile devices smartly is quite necessary. For example, keep the messages or the distractions come in quietly and accumulate by themselves without notifying us each time. Then we can process or respond to them later in batches.

In short, we should reduce the distractions from the mobile devices as many as possible and focus our attention on the current moment and surrounding environment. The digital assistant cannot work as a master in our mind. We need to regain the control our mind, and go back to essence of our life.

When reading the article, I recalled myself while walking on the street. I usually grasp the cellphone in case I missed a message or call. Sometimes, when I was at a traffic light, I even might look down on my cellphone to check my friends’ posting on the Wechat.

The zombie is a really vivid comparison. People walk on the street with no communication and no attention to the current circumstance which is very dangerous. I even recalled a news I have red before, one women got killed by the lift. The broken lift hasn't come to the right floor but opened the lift door and the women just stepped in and fell down because she was looking down at the phone at that time.

In the future, I will try to live at the moment. Enjoy everything I am experiencing at the moment. Pay more attention to the surroundings, we will find more beauty and happiness of our life.

Obviously we know it is not good, but we do all the time.
Why?
First we need something to reply on. Deeply in our heart we consider ourselves we are lonely. We need something to get out of the reality.
Second we do not feel saftey. We always think the emails have arrived or are on the way; we are nervous to see if there are comments or likes on our messages sent to social media, so we need to keep an eye on them.
Third we think the one in the phone is the real me. We believe it is the way we could show the real ourselves we feel more free to comments to show ourselves.

What to do?
If you have nothing to do, find yourself a busy job.
If you are single, find a girl friend or many...
If you get married but no kids, produce one or more...
Kidding...

1. Set personal goals. When you set goals you know what you should do to achieve it so you may not have too much time to wonder around.
2. Organize youself well. In the morning you may organize yourself what you do for the day.
Most important, pls control yourself well. You may dispoint yourself or regret when you look back to your life when you are old. You could have achieve a wonderful life but... There will be less "but".

After read this article I remember the Chinese saying: "Water can float your boat -- it can also sink it.” It depicts a world where human beings have created amazing technology that has brought them to the precipice of extinction. We are sadness to see that the rapid growth of smart phones and electronic tablets bring us harmful instead of helpful in one sense.

We create such high-technology device to improve our life, and original we will control it freely, however, we are controlled by them, like using drugs sometimes. This article intuitively tells us the damage of physical, in other side, we could see more huge hazards to our mind and spirit, even the soul. Most notably, memories have been fragmentized. Time has been divided into little pieces, we can not focus on the profound thinking and can not keep our inner peace.What is the problem? The cellphone builds a colorful word for us and we die in it, it is a heaven and a hell as well. As to me, I should deliberately direct my attention at the fundamental question and to see the amazing world outside.

I always be aware the danger of the mobile-dominated life style but sadly I have no way to change it. We are living a "piece life" time! For most time, we don't have a whole block time to enjoy a book, a show or a movie. But we are so eager to be informed in time, afraid be left behind. That's why we turned for help to our cell-phones, at least we can get a quick glance of the most popular book, show or a movie. Personally I do hate my whole life is driven by cell-phones, but every time my flight was landed, (I am a frequent flyer taking over 100 flights a year), I am so desperate to turned on my cell-phone immediately, giving me back the sense of security. I have prayed to God that one day I could get rid of the control of the cell-phone, so that I can concentrate on one thing at one time, unfortunately he has not replied me yet.

Currently, it's not strange to see a report that a person was hurt when playing with the mobile phone. The smartphone keeps some people away from their families, friends. The development of technology enable people to search and receive information in anywhere, but on the other side, some people spend to much time on it. We share pictures in social network, but won't want to talk with the people sit beside us. We play mobile games, ignore the environment.
We should establish good habit of using smartphone.

Nowadays, an increasing number of people are addicted to electronic devices, no matter adults or children. It seems that people are gradually losing the ability of communicating face-to-face because once, I saw several friends sitting together but talking on WeChat. What a ironic scenario! Besides, distracted walking brings about safety issues. I think it might be a business innovation area that leads people looking up.

Sometimes, people are afraid of being isolated or abandoned by this hurrying world. Sometimes, people try to be alone away from this world. The former ones check the new messages when reminding and text back immediately, or review the update status of "friends" via facebook, twitter,wechat and balabala. The latter ones fall into the internal self-world with wearing the earphone and listening to music. These are why we can see more and more "Zombie" walking around, passing by without any concentration.
To investigate such kind of social phenomenon, we can persuade ourselves that due to the explosion of information and social contact, this is our choice not forced by others. So the risk should be suffered by self.

Today it is popular that everybody live without cellphone even when walking on the street or driving. It is really dangerous for people to become “deadwalkers” although it’s convenient to do some work with cellphones. This kind of people is not only dangerous, but also a moral issue. What’s more, legislation is needed to prevent the happening of this kind of thing.