Your phone seems like a harmless rectangle, right? Well, in reality, your phone will most likely to seriously damage your brain and your body. Because businesses want to get as much money as they can, they make their ads more enticing and their actual products more enticing in ways that should be illegal.

Companies like Cocomelon are extremely bad for your kids, which does not make sense because the company is made for, well, babies. This show which has attracted countless babies across the years uses things like testing on babies and making the colors as vibrant as they physically can so that babies can’t look away. The reason why babies can’t look away from these vibrant colors is because the brain loves to see colors. The reason why the brain loves colors is because it releases a chemical that makes you feel happiness, anger, and even love.

Think about it; when you see pink, people usually associate that with love, and every color that there is, people associate something with it. So when babies see these extremely vibrant colors, the brain keeps releasing these chemicals so that later in life they will be practically numb to feelings. Cocomelon also tests on babies by making them watch the show, and whenever they look away, they mark it down and keep making it so the babies don’t look away at all by making the show too entertaining.

When I first heard the term, “too entertaining,” I thought there was no such thing, but believe me, there is. When the brain sees something it likes, it releases a chemical called dopamine. It releases too much and will make you numb to the happiness feeling, makes you more aggravated, and can give you ADHD because of the short bursts of dopamine. But if you want to hear more about how Cocomelon is bad for kids, I would recommend watching a video by SunnyV2 called, “Cocomelon: The Most Evil Channel On YouTube.”

Another danger of your phone, probably the most controversial, is video games. Video games are worse than you think because of the simplicity of 99% of games. This is bad because it causes your reward center in the brain to constantly get activated, which releases—no prizes if you can guess—dopamine.

When you drive a car, the chance that you will die in a car crash due to your phone in Massachusetts is 9.48%. In the U.S., the state of New Mexico has the worst percent -38.08%- chance of dying in a car crash due to your phone. Along with this, there is also another big issue called brain rot.

Brain rot: The idea that exposure to certain content can make your mental level fall. Brain rot is practically its own language because if you went up to someone and said it two years ago, they would have no idea what it means. Live streamers have popularized this type of language. Streamer Kai Cenat has made most of these words popular. Due to his popularity, other streamers want to be like him, so they start speaking like him.

Brain rot is also making high beauty standards for men and women by making words like, “looksmaxing.” This is making these five-year-old kids feel insecure about themselves because they aren’t as good-looking as these influencers. The word, “looksmaxing” was made to describe the painful process that usually men have to undergo to be attractive to women. Now it’s for all genders, so it is even worse than before. Someone went on a website for, “looksmaxing” where other strangers tell them how to look better. This person uploaded a picture, and people were encouraging him to get jaw implants and for him to use steroids even recommending surgeries that could kill him.

Other things, like mobile games, are also bad for you. If you’re anything like me, you probably thought, Oh well, it’s probably just because of your eyes being strained, but as I did some digging, I realized it could be way worse than one would think. I was watching a video by Aperture called “Brain Rot is Far Worse Than You Think” and eventually he got to a section on video games where he made some good points, like how it gives you too many dopamine hits.

One might think dopamine would be good because, if you didn’t know, dopamine is a chemical your brain releases when it gets excited, happy, or enjoying a moment. But if you get too many dopamine hits, your brain starts to release less and less dopamine from things that you do every day, like going outside or playing with friends, which gets less and less fun. These dopamine hits have been said to be more addictive than vaping and, in some cases, more dangerous because people have such a bad addiction that it’s almost impossible to get happy, so it gives these kids and grownups depression.

Now, of course, video games are not the only thing that does this because there are apps like TikTok and YouTube shorts and reels and so many other things like these less-than-minute-long videos that are making people and companies millions of dollars.

If you think that you don’t spend that long on your phone I would recommend trying to guess how long you have, then go to screen time. I almost guarantee you that you underestimated it. I did an experiment where I asked someone how long they thought they had spent on their phone, and then they looked at how long they had actually spent on their phone. I ended up asking two people who both wished to remain anonymous and the first one thought they would have 80 hours but actually had 79. Both 80 and 79 hours are extremely bad for you, but I found it surprising that they overestimated their screen time, which shows that they know that they have an unhealthy addiction but don’t do anything about it.

I also asked two other questions, those being “Do you think that you will work on this?” and “Do you think this is bad for you?”. For the first question, they said that they will not be working on this, which also surprised me because their screen time is equivalent to two full-time jobs in one week. For the second question, they answered, probably showing that they knew that it was not healthy. The other anonymous person I asked thought that they would have 20 hours on their phone but really had 49 hours. I asked them if they thought it was bad, and they said yes. I also asked them if they would work on their screen time this week, and they said yes and even stuck to their word and had 43 hours that week.

Huge companies like Apple and Android and social media apps like TikTok and Snapchat are taking advantage of you and leeching onto you so they can get more and more money. I’ll leave you with the challenge of deleting all of your social media apps and going on a social media detox to see if you can even delete these apps, whether it’s due to streaks or FOMO or even if you don’t want to get locked out. Because the truth is, you will feel happier and more confident. Just get off your phone, and if you still have FOMO, buy a newspaper or something.