These days, I sometimes feel like my mind is being pulled in a million directions by a million separate threads 8212; most likely due to my smart phone. With iPhones and other devices rather pervasive throughout the market, people’s minds are being pulled in more and more directions by the multitude of things these phones can do.

The reason smart phones are the most probable cause of our ever-stretched minds is that these phones can do so much. It is more of an argument to question what these phones cannot do, versus the abundance of things they can do.

Through Facebook or any other social media platform, I can check up on any friend I want. I can even see where a number of my friends are via the stalker-friendly Facebook Places application. I can also check my e-mail any time I want, whether it’s 2 a.m. or in the middle of a tough astronomy exam. This constant checking up on everything and anything tends to make us lose focus of the task at hand and furthers our disconnect from society.

I wonder if Steve Jobs knew, when he unveiled the iPhone, what extreme ramifications it would have on social life. Whether you like it or not, the iPhone has pretty much changed the face of social communication in the world. These days people now seem to have more online friends than they do in real life 8212; a worrisome thought. We all know that we have some Facebook friends with whom having a real life conversation with would be quite awkward and perhaps just plain weird.

Social networking, through the iPhone and Facebook, has created social disconnect by distancing people from society and making them more and more awkward in real life. This is a scary proposition; people are becoming increasingly withdrawn from society. This threatens to destroy the social threads that hold our fragile society together.

The iPhone is great for a lot of things, but try to use it in moderation for the sake of your non-online personality and your stretched brain.

Danny Peters is a senior writing major from Fort Worth.