At the gym, I go to here in Thailand the cell phone use is like that, almost everyone (except me and a few other older flang) are glued to their devices. They sit on equipment for 10 minutes or more between sets looking at who knows what making it difficult to use a machine. In addition, a large percentage of women and half the men dominate the mirrors taking various "selfies" of themselves nonstop often in various stages of undressed. At first, I was ofended by inadvertently ending up in their videos or pictures, but I gave up on that. The trainers are even worse - they have a client do a set and then both the client and trainer spend five minutes or more each looking at thier own device before trying another set. The cell phone and the internet has given people the ability to look up any fact or research at a moments notice. It is an amazing tool to have - Google maps allows us to travel all over Thailand or elsewhere without knowledge of the region, it enables people who speak different languages communicate in real time, it allows me to communicate with family back in the states easily and cheaply, and read news from all over the world just to name a few of the advantages. But,...... social media is leading to higher rates of depression, increase of body dismorphia and dissatisfied of ones self, lack of communication between people, the inability or desire for people to read or pay attention to anything longer than a 60 second or 26 character message. I am not sure what the future will bring or what effect this will have on people of the future, but .... it is definitely changing society.
