Pointless Smartphone Checking Disorder (PSCD)

Next time you're in a pub with a group of friends try this little experiment: Take a look at you smartphone, browse the internet for no reason and watch to see how many people follow suit. There's a good chance you'll set off a chain reaction of Pointless Smartphone Checking Disorder (PMCD).

And before you finish reading this article, it's likely you'll look at your smartphone at least once if not already whilst reading this. Just reading about pointless smartphone checking will make you stop reading this and have a bout of pointless checking. Likewise, seeing someone else looking at their smartphone makes you do it too.

So what's behind this mysterious epidemic of pointless smartphone checking?

Pointless Smartphone Checking Disorder is an involuntary action that causes us to open our mouths wide and breathe in deeply. We know it's involuntary because we did it even before we've purchased our first smartphones. Instead we’d stare at our non-smart mobile device for no reason as others browsed the internet.

And while Pointless Smartphone Checking Disorder is commonly associated with relaxation and drowsiness, your heart rate can rise as much as 30 percent during a pointless check, and continued pointless checking or browsing is a sign of sexual arousal. Research points to a Pavlov’s dog effect where pointless smartphone checking triggers thoughts of browsing and ultimately watching porn.

Many parts of the body are in action when you pointlessly check your smartphone. First, your mouth opens, and your jaw drops allowing as much air as possible to be taken in. When you inhale, the air taken in is filling your lungs. Your abdominal muscles flex, and your diaphragm is pushed upwards making you arch your back and neck downwards. The air you breathe in expands the lungs to capacity and then some of the air is blown back out. As a result you are completely oblivious to the world around you, and the funny or interesting conversation happening all around you.

Now that we know what Pointless Smartphone Checking Disorder does, let's look at what causes us to do it…

Common Pointless Smartphone Checking Disorder Theories

While fatigue, drowsiness or boredom easily bring on pointless smartphone checking not much is known about why we want to check our smartphones for no real reason or if it serves any useful function. However, there are several theories about why we do it. Here are the four most common...

1. The Physiological Theory

Our bodies induce pointless smartphone checking involuntarily when in a group. Recent research from Google puts forward the theory it's a sign of empathy similar to a contagious yawn. The Google study also found that those checking their smartphones are considered more attractive to the opposite sex. 

2. The Evolution Theory

Some think that pointless smart phone checking began with our 1990s brethren, who did it to impress the opposite sex or to intimidate the “other” who did not have the latest smartphone.

3. The Boredom Theory

We do tend to pointlessly check our smartphones when bored or tired.

4. The Brain-Smartening Theory

A more recent theory proposed people pointlessly check smartphones in situations where their brains likely feel dumb or have nothing to contribute. Pointless Checking Smartphone Disorder is a way to make our brains feel smart or avoid embarrassment.

Now you know why you pointlessly check your smartphone, next time see if you can stop yourself. Be smart. Don’t become a disorder. 

England Set Themselves Up To Play In No Man's Land

England started with a central midfield of two: Gerrard and Henderson. Sterling was at the top of a diamond with Welbeck, Sturridge and Rooney making up the attacking three.

From this formation it was clear England could not dominate a midfield battle against three midfielders unless Sterling was able to shuffle back and forth (hard in the heat and in his first competitive game). Therefore England had to counter attack. However, they only had one natural ball winner, in Henderson, and their back four was the weakest it had been in a decade. England had set themselves up with a no win strategy…They couldn’t keep the ball and they didn’t have enough defensive cover to play counter attack. They were in Hodgson's No Man Land. Is it any wonder they went down 1-0 in both games?

Why did they lose a goal? They offered no protection to the back four. The full backs were left exposed in a two on one each time the opposition full back combined with either front man or central midfielder who’d drifted out wide. This was heightened by the fact Rooney didn’t get back to help his full back but Rooney isn't that type of player. Under Sir Alex, Rooney played out wide in a three with Tevez and Ronaldo and did an exemplary job. So it must have been worked on in training for Henderson to cover Rooney and his full back, which meant Gerrard was left in the middle with his Alpha Romeo engine and adept positional quality to rely on. Henderson was left with two terrible choices that England had planned for. A crazy strategy. 

They lost the tactical battle and once a goal down the opposition backed off allowing England to play, and they did, but not because they were good. This false hope that England played well and so Hodgson keeps his job is just that, false. They were allowed to keep the ball once they were a goal down.

Of course it’s easy to point out flaws but what could Roy have done different? The answer. Play James Milner.

A midfield three of Milner, Henderson and Gerrard with Sterling at the top of a diamond would mean two industrious runners who could get out to the flanks to protect the full backs and help dominate possession when with the ball. These two unheralded players were the key to allow the defenders to defend and the attackers to attack.

Simple, so why didn’t Hodgson figure this out? After all he had been shown the blueprint by Brendan Rogers' Liverpool team, with Coutinho and Henderson doing the same job for Gerrard, Johnson and Flanagan? 

That is the question Greg Dyke should be asking Roy Hodgson.

Behind Every Click Is A Consequence...

Meera, a 9 year old girl living in Chittagong, has the cure for cancer in her mind. But she is sent to work in the local garment factory and never attends school so we can purchase disposable clothes from Primark. 

Lee-Wu is getting ready to board the fishing boats tonight. He sees the world in numbers but instead of sitting at a desk and unleashing his potential he pulls up nets full of prawns so we can eat cheap seafood. 

Luke lives in Sapa. Ten years ago he devoured the words in scientific journals he read online. Now tourists come to spend their sterling and he's too tired after standing on the streets begging for money to read when he gets home.

How many Nobel prize winners have we lost? How many doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists, economists, authors, electricians, plumbers, designers, mathematicians...

Globalisation of supply chains for many of our favourite products robs millions of children in the less developed world of an education. Tourism steals their fertile minds from the classroom and brings them into the streets. It all starts with us. The minute we click on our mouse. The second we purchase a product...Is it worth it?

Not Made In China

Considered a feat of human sweat, ingenuity and imagination, 138 pyramids (discovered so far) were built across Egypt between 2600BC and 1800BC. To destroy a common myth, this meant the workers were paid in beer and bread, and in employment all their lives. Was this an unintended side effect of the quest for the afterlife or did the Pharaoh have a Keynesian economist in its inner circle?

‘Let them eat brioche’ is the quote attributed to Marie Antoinette. Didn’t work. If she had proclaimed ‘let them build a palace’ maybe her head would have remained attached to her neck. For giving treacherous minds work to do would distract their revolution seeking thoughts, which could instead be left to the brains that lacked the stomach to fight.

The Chinese Communist Party worship at the alter of extreme Keynesian. The grand bargain between the people and the government can be summed up by the following ancient Chinese proverb:

‘You can’t propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back’

A little help is needed to hit the year on year 8% growth target. Why 8%? This maintains near on full employment. Workers working. No idle minds revolting.

During the global financial crisis this key figure fell to 6.6%, sending party members into shotgun solutions. The winner. Put another brick in the wall. The latest figures from China in 2014 show the rate of growth was 7.4%. The Egyptians used pyramids. The Communists construct great walls, not to keep the Mongols out, but to keep them in power. And that’s the only choice they have. If they stop building they risk losing everything.      

Commentators cite the environmental degradation across China during their recent, rapid industrialisation as a potential reason for the walls to collapse. Around 9,683 miles from Beijing is the warning: Easter Island. Its rapid felling due to chopping the native trees so to transport their stone statues. Why the long face? Nutrient leaching. Soil degradation. Crop and livestock failure. Population collapse.     

China, too, has suffered environmentally. Its air is thick with industrial wealth. Its rivers team with extra sediment. Its arable land shrinks with global warming. But the Communist Party has shown foresight. Embracing globalisation, China has “shared ownership” over huge parts of farming land across Africa and Europe and the commodity market is driven by its polluted air.

Is there to be a hard landing in China throwing the world back into recession? No, the Communist Party simply won’t let it happen. Its very survival depends on it growing year on year, and like the Pharaoh it will keep building pyramids. That empire lasted for 500 years. 

The next economic shock will not be made in China.

The Foreign Invader

Back with the Spanish ships, that avoided the British pirates in the Caribbean, came a bounty of new world products including tobacco, tomatoes, chocolate and potatoes.

From the port city of Seville potatoes arrived in Ireland via Basque fishermen. They landed on the western tip of the Emerald Isle to dry their Atlantic cod catch. They were welcomed with open arms by the Irish women. They left. The potato stayed and was planted, fed, given nourishment and flourished.

Soon it was sneaked across the Irish Sea. Sometimes stowed on board boats crossing the border or in the possession of navvy’s coming to England to provide the sweat to plant the seeds of future empire.

On arrival the potato was greeted by natives (turnip, cabbage and asparagus) with suspicion, and they were proved correct when the potato started taking their nutrients, water and land. The indigenous vegetables were in outrage but what could they do? The potato was more versatile. It worked all year around unlike asparagus. It provided more nutrients in return for the investment of time and fertiliser compared to the low energy cabbage and offered better taste than the turnip. A counter campaign was started to combat this foreigner – ‘British land for British vegetables.’

But the potato was stubborn. It liked the peaty soils, wet climate and friendly insects of this land of no extremes. And despite the natives campaign the potato numbers grew and grew.

Four hundred years later and the potato is considered a native in its own right. A quintessential part of British culture. Without which we would have no roast potato in our Sunday lunch or chip beside our fish or creamy mash with our sausages.

It’s eaten on our beaches. It’s eaten in the fields, and on the streets and upon our hills, and it will always be eaten. And when in distant lands we eat our beloved potato we to will be reminded of home, of England.