Worried about your Internet or phone use? These tips will encourage you to break free of the habit and manage your life better, online and off.
What is smartphone addiction?
Although an incredibly effective tool may be a smartphone, tablet, or computer, compulsive use of these devices can interfere with work, education, and relationships. It might be time to reassess the use of technology if you spend more time on social media or playing games than you communicate with real people, or you can't stop yourself from reading messages, emails, or apps repeatedly, even if it has negative implications in your life.
Smartphone addiction is sometimes fuelled by an Internet overuse problem or Internet addiction disorder, often colloquially referred to as "nomophobia" (fear of being without a cell phone). After all, the addiction is rarely generated by the phone or tablet itself, but rather the games, applications, and online worlds that it connects us to.
Smartphone addiction may include a number of issues related to impulse control, including:
Virtual friendships. Social networking, dating apps, texting, and email addiction can extend to the point that virtual, online friends are more valuable than relationships in real life. We have all seen couples seated in a restaurant together avoiding each other and instead playing with their smartphones. While the Internet can be a wonderful place for meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, or even beginning romantic relationships, online relationships are not a safe replacement for experiences in real life. As they seem to live in a bubble, online friendships may be desirable, not subject to the same demands or pressures as chaotic, real-world relationships. Instead of building long-term relationships, compulsive use of dating apps will turn the attention to short-term hookups.
Overload of Knowledge. Compulsive web browsing, video streaming, playing sports, or monitoring news feeds can result in lower work or school productivity and isolate you for hours at a time. From real-world relationships to interests and social pursuits, compulsive use of the Internet and mobile apps will cause you to overlook other elements of your life.
Addiction to Cybersex. Compulsive use of Internet pornography, sexting, nude-swapping, or adult messaging services may have a detrimental effect on your personal relationships and overall mental wellbeing in real life. Although sexual addiction styles are online pornography and cybersex addictions, the Internet makes it more available, relatively anonymous, and very convenient. In real life, it is easy to spend hours engaged in dreams that are unlikely. Excessive use of dating apps that promote casual sex can make it harder to establish or harm an established relationship in long-term interpersonal relationships.
Online compulsions can also lead to financial and job-related issues, such as gaming, gambling, stock trading, online shopping, or bidding on auction sites like eBay. Although gambling addiction has been a well-documented issue for years, gambling has become even more available with the availability of internet gambling. Trading in compulsive stocks or shopping online can be just as financially and socially detrimental. In order to be online for the last remaining minutes of an auction, eBay addicts can wake up at odd hours. Just to feel the thrill of putting the winning bid, you can buy items you don't need and can't afford.
Causes and effects of smartphone and Internet addiction
Although with a laptop or desktop computer you can encounter impulse-control issues, the size and simplicity of smartphones and tablets means that we can take them almost anywhere and fulfill our compulsions at any moment. Most of us, in fact, are seldom more than five feet away from our smartphones. They can activate the release of the brain chemical dopamine and improve your mood, much like the use of drugs and alcohol. You can also easily build up tolerance so that it takes more and more time to derive the same pleasurable reward in front of these screens.
Other underlying conditions, such as stress, anxiety, depression, or isolation, may also be symptomatic of heavy smartphone use. It may also worsen these issues at the same time. For example, if you use your smartphone as a "security blanket" to ease feelings of anxiety, depression, or awkwardness in social settings, you will only be able to cut yourself further off from people around you. Staring at your phone will deprive you the face-to-face experiences that can help link you to others meaningfully, relieve anxiety, and improve your mood. In other words, actually making your anxiety worse is the treatment you want for your anxiety (engaging with your smartphone).
Smartphone or Internet addiction can also negatively impact your life by:
Growing isolation and depression. While losing yourself online can seem to cause feelings like loneliness, depression, and boredom to evaporate into thin air temporarily, it may actually make you feel much worse. A research from 2014 found a correlation between high use of social media and depression and anxiety. On social media, users, especially teenagers, tend to compare themselves unfavorably with their peers, fostering feelings of isolation and depression.
Anxiety-fueling. One researcher found that the mere existence of a phone in a workplace appears to make individuals more nervous and perform poorly on tasks given. The heavier the phone usage of an individual, the greater the anxiety they have encountered.
Enhancing stress. Using a smartphone for work also means that work bleeds into your personal life and home. You feel the pressure from work to always be on, never out of touch. This need to regularly review and respond to emails can lead to greater levels of stress and even burnout.
Exacerbating disorders of attention deficit. The relentless stream of a smartphone's notifications and data will overwhelm the brain and make it difficult for more than a few minutes to concentrate attention on any one thing without feeling compelled to move on to something else.
Reducing your capacity to focus and think deeply or creatively. Your smartphone's constant buzz, ping or beep can distract you from important tasks, slow down your job, and disrupt those quiet moments that are so crucial to creativity and solving problems. We're now still online and linked instead of ever being alone with our thoughts.
Your sleep disturbing. Excessive use of smartphones will interrupt your sleep, which can have a severe effect on your mental health as a whole. It can impair your memory, affect your ability to think logically, and decrease your abilities in comprehension and learning.
Encouraging absorption in oneself. A UK study found that individuals who spend a lot of time on social media are more likely to exhibit negative personality traits including narcissism. It can generate an unhealthy self-centeredness by taking constant selfies, sharing all your thoughts or information about your life, distancing you from real-life relationships and making it harder to cope with stress.
Signs and symptoms of smartphone addiction
There is no particular amount of time spent on your phone, or the frequency of alerts you check, or the amount of messages you send or receive, suggesting an issue of addiction or overuse.
It only becomes a concern to spend a lot of time linked to your phone when it consumes so much of your time that it causes you to neglect your face-to-face relationships, your career, education, hobbies, or other significant things in your life. It's time to reassess your mobile use and strike a healthy balance in your life if you find yourself skipping friends during lunch to read Facebook messages or compulsively checking your phone while driving or during school lectures.
Warning signs of smartphone or Internet overuse include:
Trouble completing work or home duties. Do you find laundry piling up for dinner in the house and little food because you've been busy talking, texting, or playing video games online? Perhaps you find yourself too frequently working late because you can't finish your job on time.
Isolation from friends and relatives. Is it because of all the time you spend on your phone or another laptop that your social life suffers? Can you lose track of what is being said while you are in a meeting or speaking with friends while you are checking your phone? Have friends and family shared concern about your phone's amount of time you spend? Do you feel like nobody, except your partner, understands you like your online friends in your real life?
Hiding the use of a smartphone. Are you sneaking off to a quiet location to use your phone? Do you cover the use of smartphones or lie about the amount of time you spend online with your boss and family? If your online time is disrupted, do you get annoyed or cranky?
Getting a' fear of missing out' (or FOMO). If you don't check your phone daily, do you hate feeling out of the loop or think you're missing out on important news or information? Do you need to scan social media compulsively because you're worried about someone getting a great time, or living a more exciting life than you? Do you get up to check your phone at night?
If you leave your mobile at home, the battery runs down or the operating system crashes, you feel fear, anxiety, or panic. Do you think your phone has vibrated, but when you check, there are no new messages or updates? Or do you feel phantom vibrations?