What is smartphone addiction?
The word “addiction” is usually associated with alcohol and drugs in Bulgaria.
But a new study by scientists from Baylor University, USA, raises the question of the emergence of a new form of addiction – to mobile phones.
A study of the behavior of high school students found that about 60% of them met the definition of “addicted” to cell phones.
They spend too much time on their mobile phones and feel anxious and worried if they haven’t looked at the device for a long time or if it is somewhere around them.
A team of scientists led by Dr. James Roberts found that college and upperclassmen spend an average of 9 hours a day using their cell phones.
“This is amazing! The constantly growing technological capabilities of mobile devices, instead of reducing the amount of time spent in front of them, on the contrary, it is constantly increasing and creates a danger of the development of smartphone addiction,” says Dr. Roberts.
The results of this study were published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.
In particular, there are legitimate concerns that such a dependent attitude towards mobile devices will lead to a decrease in student or student success.
The second problem provoked by the excessive use of mobile phones is conflicts with teachers, employers and even tension between family members.
All of these would be due to excessive distraction due to cell phone use.
The aim of the study was to find out exactly what actions with the mobile phone lead to the strongest addiction.
The team of scientists conducted an online survey with the participation of 164 students aged 19-22. The participants were offered options for actions they most often perform with their mobile phones.
Furthermore, the survey had prompts to agree or disagree with statements such as “I feel anxious if I haven’t looked at my cell phone for a long time.” or “I I think I spend too much time using my mobile device.’
The most popular actions that were performed on the mobile phone were: sending SMS text messages/94.6 minutes per day/, sending e-mail messages E-mail, reading the news feed on Facebook /38.6 minutes per day/, searching the Internet via online search engines /34.4 minutes/ and listening to music /26.9 minutes per day/.
Namely text messages and social networks are the main cause of cell phone addiction.
Commenting on the results of their research, the authors note:
“The results of our research show that some types of activities performed on the mobile phone are more likely to lead to the formation of mobile phone addiction than others, and these causes of addiction differ by gender .
The mobile phone should give us freedom to communicate, to search for information, etc. But we see a side effect of the advancement of technology – the emergence of a pathological attachment to mobile phones, having an adverse impact on some aspects of life.”
