Japanese and Korean smart phone usage

Many laments have been written over the past few years related to Americans’ unhealthy habits with smart phones. Our society is becoming increasingly addicted to our phones and face-to-face human interactions are suffering as a consequence. I’m not immune to bad phone habits and at times I catch myself checking Twitter too often. That said, as bad as America’s phone problems have become, they are nothing compared to what I saw in Japan and Korea. Their phone habits make ours seem healthy by comparison. I have never seen such large swaths of people basking in the glow on their phone screens. Particularly in places like Tokyo and Seoul you can get on subways, walk into restaurants, or just be wandering around town and see a legion of craned necks and hands holding small objects that dispense electronic cocaine. America certainly needs to improve its phone habits, but I suppose we can take a bit of solace in that we haven’t yet reached Japanese or Korean levels of phone addiction.