Cell Phone Addiction: It’s a Real Thing!

I want everyone to visualize something for me for but a moment. Imagine your last few social situations (three or more people present). You may have been grabbing dinner, seeing a movie, or just hanging out at someone’s house. What was one thing that each situation had in common?

At one point, did everyone take out their cell phone and start texting? If you’re anything like me, you can’t stand to see people engrossed with their cell phones at all hours of the day. Whether it be first thing in the morning or right before bed, people seem to be connected on social media and text messaging at all hours of the day via their mobile devices.

Indeed, the studies agree with me. According to a recent look at childhood smartphone adoption, the rate of addiction among internet users from the age of five to 49 is now 7.2% (Park, 2014). Is that not disturbing to anyone? Even more disturbing is that smartphone use fails to fit into any early childhood development stage due to its passive nature — users are simply sitting down and consuming content, it’s a very passive activity. The decrease in activity in the frontal lobe of the brain impairs the ability to think, judge, and concentrate. Let’s not even begin talking about the decline of physical activity of those who spend their days glued to their devices. Another study has even correlated the use of mobile devices with a decrease in time spent sleeping in university students (Roberts, et al., 2015).

The important note that I want to highlight is that this kind of activity has become such a norm in society these days that it’s not even talked about. This high level of media use in young adult’s lives have become so normal that they’re unable to even see their levels of dependence and addiction.

This can’t keep happening.

Back to the situation we visualized in the beginning of this post, several studies have posited that the reason cell phone addiction is so prominent is that when users are frustrated, bored, or uncomfortable in social situations, they find distraction in their cell phones. Because of the high amount of things that are able to be done on phones – from mobile banking to social networking – even the most attentive people can become lost in their devices.

As communications practitioners, we have the ability reverse these trends by setting the right example. I encourage each and everyone to think hard next time you pick up that iPhone when waiting for your food to arrive at a dinner or when there’s a lull in conversation; it could cause more damage than you think.

Park, C., & Park, Y. R. (2014). The conceptual model on smart phone addiction among early childhood. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 4(2), 147-150.

Roberts, J. A., Pullig, C., & Manolis, C. (2015). I need my smartphone: A hierarchical model of personality and cell-phone addiction. Personality and Individual Differences, 79, 13-19.