We all love our phones, but you might be surprised how they impact your players.
Discover the positive and negative impact of our phones.
Phones are miniature computers that most of us can’t live without. They really are amazing when you consider that the average smartphone we use today has more power than the computers NASA used to send the Apollo 11 spaceship to the moon.
While it’s incredible to look up a fact while watching a ballgame, or using your phone to navigate your way around any city in the world, it’s immediacy also has some downsides. We’re addicted to our messages – in fact the average person checks their phone 150 times a day!
And when it comes to your players, their phones can definitely impact their softball. One simple way is that technology is simply easier than sports. Scrolling around your phone is much easier than struggling with softball. The immediacy that our phones can give us makes the concept of “getting something later through hard work” extremely difficult for our players to understand.
Smartphones are a tremendously convenient addition to our lives, but they can also be a hindrance to our sleep, our energy, alertness and softball skills. The following chart, compiled by @AmericaOnline, shows the effects to athletes who are on their phone more than 2 hours a day.
To help your players use their phones in a healthy way, set some simple guidelines:
- Phone off 1 hour before bed
- Breakfast before checking your phone
- No phones during meals – make eye contact with people you’re eating with
These rules should apply to us as well – adults are the biggest abusers of phones while in the presence of kids. Kids want our attention and resent our phones. Smartphones are here to stay so let’s help our players use them in a positive, not harmful way.
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