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Today, almost everyone can’t imagine their life without smartphones. They are our means of communication, they help us find the information we need, capture unforgettable moments, and make our leisure time more varied.
But, gadgets are not only beneficial but also harmful. Many sports coaches point out that athletes and phones shouldn’t be together as smartphone dependence among professional athletes is often detrimental to their performance on the field.
But how exactly do gadgets affect athletes and should they be asked to give up their phones?
Athletes and phones: why it’s a bad combination
Inability to fully concentrate on your work
Smartphones, which are often positioned as a tool to help perform important tasks on the go, are detrimental to productivity.
Gadgets constantly distract athletes with their notifications, calls, and various signals. So, athletes and phones are a bad combination. Even if a person who is addicted to a smartphone puts the device aside, he still cannot concentrate, because the brain is already used to sharing attention.
Athletes who spend a lot of time on their gadgets are simply unable to concentrate on the words of the coach during the general meeting and discussion of the tactics of the game. During training, they are constantly distracted, which is why they cannot properly prepare for the upcoming match.
Loss of communication with teammates
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe that smartphones make people less responsive. When we read messages, facial expressions, gestures, and intonations of the interlocutor are hidden from us, so we stop noticing them in real life. But all this is important for understanding other people.
Also, a person with his or her favorite gadget in sight pays much less attention to what is going on around him or her and to the people around him or her. If you ask such a person about something, they will answer automatically, and if you tell them something, they are unlikely to hear it. When distractions are available, people simply do not see the point in communicating more openly and deeply with someone.
When it comes to athletes, all of this has an impact on their relationship with their teammates. In team sports, unity, the ability to understand each other at a glance and the camaraderie that is built on communication are fundamental. Smartphones cause athletes to have problems with this. So, we can say athletes and phones are a bad idea together.
Loss of motivation and self-confidence
Almost all athletes have active social media accounts. Thousands of people see their photos and their lives are constantly monitored. Taking advantage of the anonymity that social media provides, haters or fans of the opposing team can write anything to an athlete, insulting and demoralizing him or her. And, this is another reason why athletes and phones shouldn’t be together.
Many athletes keep their smartphones in their hands even before they go out on the field and take everything that is written about them to heart. Before an important match, an unflattering comment can easily take away an athlete’s confidence and cause him or her to perform poorly.
What should we do?
Of course, completely abandoning the phone in the modern world will not work. Yet, athletes need to understand that gadget addiction is bad for their performance in sports and limit the use of devices.
If it is difficult to do this, you can use one of the applications that block the phone or certain programs at certain times of the day. Also, a great solution would be to simply turn off notifications so as not to grab your gadget every second. If you remove useless applications, then the temptation to use a smartphone will also be less. You can find other articles about smartphones and mobile communications in our daily life on Telecomasia.net.
