Weekly Wave: Our cellphones are turning us into Pavlov’s dogs

DULUTH — According to research conducted by Reviews.org, Americans check their cellphones an average of 205 times a day, or 8.54 times an hour. That’s a 42% increase from 2023.

Have our cellphones turned us into Pavlov’s dogs? It seems so.

Full disclosure: So far this week I’ve picked up my phone 97, 100, 78, 89 and 131 times Sunday through Thursday. So, I’m well below the national average, but I’m not exactly living off the grid either.

Admit it. Whenever your phone dings, vibrates or lights up, you immediately pick it up to check what you’re missing. Ivan Pavlov would see similarities between our cellphone behavior and the dogs from his famous experiments in the late 1890s.

It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing. When they alert us to a call, text, app notification or something else, we grab our cellphones and check it out.

First thing in the morning when we wake up.
While eating dinner at a restaurant.
Or watching a movie.
During a meeting at work.
When there’s a timeout during the football game (sometimes even during the action).
Maybe even during a church service.
Just before going to sleep.

But not responding to our phone’s beck and call right away just feels so wrong!

Pavlov’s dogs became so conditioned by the sound of the bell that they salivated whenever they heard it. Let’s hope our cellphone addictions don’t come to that!

I wish you all a great Christmas and New Year!

Wyatt Buckner / Duluth Media Group

Our photographers and digital producers do not tire of capturing Lake Superior and her myriad moods with photos and videos. And we never tire of viewing them.

The annual appearance of sea smoke on Lake Superior never disappoints, and DNT digital producer Wyatt Buckner recently snapped several striking shots of ships slipping through the lake mist.

The frigid ships appear to haunt Lake Superior and the Twin Ports in Buckner’s photos and video.

It’s quintessential Duluth!

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

Drivers traversing the Blatnik Bridge at Christmastime are well-acquainted with the colorful holiday tree adorning the top of the CHS grain elevator.

The DNT’s Jay Gabler and Wyatt Buckner produced a holiday-themed Northlandia that took readers to the top of that grain elevator to check out the highest Christmas tree in the Twin Ports.

(Subscriber-only story)

Wyatt Buckner / Duluth Media Group

If fall 2024 seemed warmer than usual, the National Weather Service in Duluth backs up that observation.

DNT reporter Jimmy Lovrien noticed the warm weather trend and checked the Weather Service stats and chatted with a climatologist to gather more facts to share with readers.

It turns out that autumn 2024 was the second-warmest on record, according to the National Weather Service, tucked in between the balmy falls from 1963 and 1931.

Here are a few more stories from the past week to check out:

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Rick Lubbers has been in his role since 2014 and at the News Tribune since 2005. Previous stops include the Superior Telegram (1999-2005) and Budgeteer News (1997-1999). Prior to that, he worked at the St. Cloud Times and Annandale Advocate in Minnesota, and the Greenville Daily News and Grand Rapids Press in Michigan. He received his journalism degree at Central Michigan University.