Phone addiction: signs, definition, how to get rid

Technologies designed to help us often prevent people from leading full lives. And it’s the smartphone that brings more problems. Many cannot part with it even for a second, checking email or even just turning on the screen. And so, when the need arises to constantly hold the gadget in your hands, this becomes the first bell of a serious situation. I will tell you below what addiction to a mobile phone and the Internet is called and how to get rid of the disease.

Nomophobia - a disease of the 21st century

Communications appeared in Russia about 15 years ago and immediately replaced landline options from general use. Today it is not just the ability to send a message or make a call at any time. The devices are used as entertainment and a way to live a public life. Thanks to such popular social networks as Instagram, Vkontakte, Telegram, people can find out the latest news, follow the events that happened with friends and acquaintances. This was the reason for such a takeover of all users by smartphones. And as a result of this, the emergence of telephone addiction.

This is not an invented illness, but a significant disease, which is included by experts in the list next to addiction to alcohol and games. Psychologists have called nomophobia a disease of the 21st century. After all, it greatly influences the behavior of the individual and does not allow her to live normally.

Psychology of concepts

The term appeared not so long ago and originates from the English phrase “no mobile phobia”. Experts use it to indicate a state of anxiety, often reaching the point of panic, that occurs in an individual who has lost the way to maintain contact through a gadget. At first glance, these seem to be common manifestations when the charger runs out, communication is lost, or funds on the balance are lost. 53% of people addicted to their phones are afraid of being lonely. Every second person does not turn off their device even for a second, and the tenth person is always in touch due to their profession.

It is realistic to compare nomophobia with alcoholism: after all, deprivation of a gadget provokes withdrawal syndrome. And despite the fact that dependence on a smartphone does not pose a health risk, its impact on everyday life is quite significant.

Lazy brain

As the number of tasks increases, the brain has to choose more and more carefully where to spend its precious energy. To reduce costs, he is simply lazy to do what a smartphone can handle. When was the last time you added up or memorized a phone number? The term “Google effect” appeared: when all the information in the world is found in search engines, the user begins to suffer from digital amnesia and remembers less and less.

“The point is not only that Google has replaced erudition for us,” continues Konstantin Frumkin. “Right now, human memory is basically unable to capture all the information. In the 20th century, there could have been such a character as an erudite who had the most important information on a very wide range of issues. This character was adequate to the needs of society, when there was less knowledge, it was less frequently updated and replenished. I think everything is slowly coming to the point that, having transferred the ability to remember and memorize to search engines, we will specifically solve puzzles to maintain brain tone. Just like due to a less active lifestyle than our ancestors, we play sports. But sports are not needed to carry bricks. And memory training will be needed not for work, but simply to keep the brain in shape.

The endless flow of information from a gadget also constantly confronts a person with a choice: more complicated or simpler? You can read a long article, or you can scroll through the feed in search of memes. The brain will most likely choose the latter. But he (and we!) are not to blame, because it is evolution that has taught us to save resources. So the “simpler” choice is obvious, and everything that is “more complicated” is postponed until later, which may not come.

Information overload and instant knowledge technologies are turning us into “pancake” people. Instead of assembling in our heads a complex structure of knowledge and cultural heritage, we spread out in a thin superficial layer across a vast network of information, access to which is just a click away.

Let's jump to the top

Scientists at University College London spent five years observing the habits of users of resources that provide access to articles and e-books. It turned out that people almost always skim only the surface layer of information: they skim over the headlines and summary, read one or two pages, and jump to something else.

Manifestations of addiction

The annoyance that you will have to listen to the teacher during lectures and not communicate on social networks, or that you may be left without your favorite game at work, is not a sign of illness. A phobia is an irrational reaction to specific events. So, addicted people start to panic if there is no device nearby. They cannot concentrate on activities, become irritable, feel uncomfortable and lost. In illness, all these characteristics are expressed quite clearly. Other signs are also present: sweating, chills, confusion in thoughts, rapid heartbeat. A few more manifestations:

• Depends on the appearance of the device. I want to decorate my smartphone in a special way, buy a new model and thus emphasize my position in society or stand out from the crowd.
• The desire for information. The individual turns the bag upside down, looking for a gadget so as not to miss a new message or news.
• Sound hallucinations. It begins to seem as if a call is being heard, although in fact there was none.

In addition, nomophobia can be called a condition where even the thought of losing an electronic friend can cause a panic attack. Therefore, it is known to divide the disease into degrees: from weak to strong.

Method 3: Reorganize Application Storage

Why are smartphones and some applications on them addictive? Thanks to the work of designers and marketers. Bright app icons and red notification icons are the visual triggers that keep us swiping again and again. Just like the colorful M&M's wrappers in Google's kitchen experiment. That's the essence of it.

Anyone who works at Google can come into the kitchen and snack on fruit and candy for free. But one day management discovered: of all the products, employees prefer M&M's. Then the scientific team set a goal to reduce the number of harmful snacks. She studied people's behavior and found that brightly colored candy wrappers trigger an unconscious desire to eat them. And also that M&M's are too easy to grab: employees take them and eat them without really thinking about this action.

To remedy the situation, scientists placed candy in opaque white ceramic jars with a lid, and fruits and other healthy foods in clear glass containers. In addition, they replaced the multi-colored packaging with white cards indicating the contents. As a result, consumption of M&M's decreased: in the New York office alone, over the course of seven weeks, the average employee ate nine packs less than before the experiment. Please note: the candies were not removed, the storage was simply reorganized. The same thing should be done with applications on the home screen.

Declutter apps using Marie Kondo's method

Start by putting things in order - and knowledge about regular cleaning methods will come in handy. Thus, cult expert Marie Kondo advises the ideal way to get rid of unnecessary things: simply throw away clothes, books and souvenirs that do not spark joy. If you take Kondo's approach into the digital space, cleaning your phone becomes as simple as possible: all the apps that don't make you happy are actually unnecessary and go in the trash. If an app is questionable, uninstall it anyway. If you miss it or find it necessary, download it again.

Collect applications in a folder and hide them

After you have removed unnecessary applications, you need to make sure that the remaining ones do not encourage mindless online surfing. Multi-colored app icons like Facebook’s blue “F” or Instagram’s pink camera are alluring. To regain control over attention and behavior, you need to hide them.

1. Collect all the applications that are left after decluttering into one folder in random order.
2. Place bright icons on the second page of the folder. Then their color is not visible and the eye catches applications with neutral icons.
3. Move the folder to the second screen or third. This will be the digital equivalent of the opaque jars with lids from Google's experiment. This way you won't see a folder full of flashy icons when you unlock your phone, and you'll avoid any incentive to open an app you didn't intend to use in the first place.

Open apps through search

After you have hidden applications, train yourself to open them through search. Typing will automatically reduce unconscious phone use: it is almost impossible to type on a keyboard without thinking. To open apps on iPhone, simply swipe down on the screen and type the first few characters of the name into the search.

Not looking at app icons and typing their names feels weird at first. But this will give you enough time to ask yourself every time you use your phone: “Do I really want to do this?” And no, it won’t slow you down. iPhone remembers the text you type. Very soon it will be enough to type only “F” or “Fa” to open Facebook, instead of the whole “Facebook”.

Signs of phone addiction

• You don’t put your device down for a second; you take it even when going to the store. You feel safer when your smartphone is in sight or in your pocket.
• The gadget is constantly in your hands. You spend a lot of money on purchasing various updates and programs.
• When you sleep, the device lies directly under the pillow or on a table next to the bed.
• Communication on the device takes precedence over meetings.
• Unlike conversations on the phone, during a conversation in person, stiffness arises and words are lost.
• You are afraid of loss and constantly check if the gadget is nearby.
• A lot of time is spent taking selfies, posting on Instagram and other social networks. You think it is important for people to see that you are dressed presentably and have perfect makeup, even if in reality your appearance is not so good.

If these symptoms have already appeared, efforts must be made to overcome phone addiction, as it has already begun to gain momentum.

Psychologist Daria Milai

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Your result

From 7 to 11

We're jealous! You are free from the main addiction of our time. A smartphone is nothing more than a tool for you; you can live just fine without it. But are you missing out on the amazing opportunities that gadgets provide? After all, this is a powerful expansion of the brain, making us real cyborgs with a lot of new abilities!

From 12 to 16

You are a typical hero of our time - you suffer from moderate gadget mania, like most of us. How can we prevent it from becoming a pathology? There is no simple recipe, it is important to strive for conscious consumption, but this is an art that takes time to master. By the way, you can start by monitoring the time spent on your smartphone or on social networks - there are many applications for this.

From 17 to 21

You are not just a gadget addict, you are a cyborg! The smartphone has long become your artificial organ, an external part of the brain - the exocortex. He gives a lot, but also takes away a lot. What exactly? Try spending a couple of days without your phone in the fresh air - perhaps you will look at the world with new eyes and feel what is truly important to you.

Information about the author:

Maria Pazi, a scientific journalist and biologist-researcher, began writing for the Russian Reporter magazine while still a student at the Faculty of Biology at St. Petersburg State University, and very quickly achieved recognition. In 2022, she was recognized at the Debut in Science Journalism award, and soon her article won first place in the Tech in Media competition. In 2019 - again first place at Tech in Media. In 2020, he won the Rusnano Russian Sci&Tech Writer of the Year competition. And in September, for the first time in the history of Russian journalism, Maria was recognized as the best science journalist in Europe: the European Federation of Science Journalism and the British Association of Science Writers announced her as the winner of the European Science Journalist of the Year award for a series of articles in the Russian Reporter about how digital technologies are changing everyday life. The published article continues this series.

How does it arise

The reason for this is not the desire to have fun. This is a way to relieve stress, cope or distract from pressing problems: loneliness or the inability to make your life better. It doesn’t matter how a person copes with internal tension: whether he plays games or resorts to drugs. From the point of view of physiological factors, behavioral and drug addiction have quite a lot of similarities.

The frantic rhythm of the day, a huge number of things to do and tasks create a stressful state. The phone, it seems to most people, saves from this. He comes to the rescue when we are sad or bored. However, this is not a healthy way to cope with negative emotions, because over time the problem becomes deeper, and the question of how to stop being addicted to the phone becomes more acute.

Gotcha?!

There are few things we enjoy as much as talking about ourselves. A profile on a social network becomes a person’s diary and social face.

“The study showed that when volunteers talked about themselves, the pleasure system in the brain reacted even more strongly than to monetary reward,” says Ekaterina Vinogradova. — In real life, we rarely manage to talk about ourselves. And gadgets and social networks provide this opportunity in unlimited quantities. And it doesn’t even matter whether someone there is listening to us or not. In addition, we quench the thirst for self-identity, one of the basic human needs. It’s easy to find a group, forum, or game online that you can join and gain recognition from the local online community.

Ancient instincts tell a person to please the tribe. Likes simply take the instinct to another plane: we strive to please the online tribe and become anxious when this fails. Previously, we asserted ourselves in studies, work or personal relationships, now we are fueled by likes and comments. It's easier to get likes. And we carefully grow our digital clone.

— A side effect that creates discomfort when constantly using social networks is the feeling that everyone around is extremely successful: they travel, go to concerts, but I have nothing to brag about. Compared to the successes of others, our own achievements seem insignificant,” says Ekaterina Lapina-Kratasyuk, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics, senior researcher at the School of Contemporary Humanitarian Research at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, co-author of a study on the impact of digital technologies on urban residents. “This feeling of social inferiority is based on the naive belief that the picture we see on social networks is a reflection of reality. But a personal page is a careful montage of selected subjects and images. But literally every user feels less successful than his friends, and increasingly edits his digital image in accordance with stereotypes of success. This, in turn, increases the feeling of self-doubt among others and encourages them to take an even more responsible approach to the matter of forming an image on social networks. The circle is closed.

Filter bubble

Algorithms that monitor our online behavior create personalized advertising and news feed content. For example, if you pretend to be a follower of a healthy lifestyle, you will be followed on your heels by advertising of sports clubs and fitness supplements, posts about training and diets. The rest is filtered out, and the user does not see anything outside the information bubble specially created for him. Gotcha?

Reasons for appearance

• Fear of loneliness. The Internet and the device create the appearance that the person is needed. They give confidence and make you feel indispensable.
• Intrusive adware. Messages about the appearance of new models, social networks and applications are everywhere. And while adults can still filter out this information, it is much more difficult for a child to do this. He, like a sponge, absorbs such data and really begins to consider smartphones as the most necessary items.
• Communication with the outside world. Today, many are surprised how just 20 years ago people lived without the ability to call or write to a loved one at any time or communicate with them almost around the clock. But earlier there were more reasons for meetings, whereas now part of the relationship is transferred to correspondence.
• Work mode. With the advent of such professions as a programmer or an advertiser, much more time is spent working in these areas. Some people work almost around the clock, while they do not have a minute left for their personal life. Because of this, they are forced to sit on the phone to compensate for this loss.

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Loneliness together

It is also difficult to escape from a gadget because it is an terribly convenient communication tool that allows friendship and love to instantly overcome distances. For the first time in history, people can always stay connected and never get lost. It is by losing contact with loved ones that most people justify their fear of being left without a phone. So nomophobia is monophobia (fear of being alone) in disguise.

“Gadgets create opportunities for social connectedness,” explains anthropologist Andrey Vozyanov, lecturer at the European Humanities University (Vilnius) and co-author of a study on the impact of digitalization on city residents. — Digital space, in a sense, becomes home for us: no matter where you are, the same friends write to you in messengers, you see photos of acquaintances in your social media feed. There are new ways to communicate and show attention. If I sent someone a link to a new music video, then I kind of showed the other person that I remember about him and his tastes. In addition, it seems to me that social networks and gadgets allow for new gradations of communication. There is a level when someone looks at your photos on Instagram, and you look at them. You don't correspond, but you imagine what's going on in each other's lives. Someone else puts likes, and someone writes comments. At the next level, you are already exchanging messages regularly.

— Communication is changing. When we began to actively use social networks, conversations moved to chats, communication became written,” adds Dmitry Solovyov, a media analyst and one of the ideologists of digital detox in Russia. “It lost its non-verbal component, so people began to invent what was not there: to give words a mood, to look for intonations. You know the joke “If you didn’t put a smiley face in your message, they hate you”? That’s why stickers and emojis appeared - they convey our digital emotions. Digital communication etiquette has emerged: say, if you have viewed a message, you need to respond to it. If you don't have time to respond, leave the message unread. This is convenient: it happens that the interlocutor is busy with his own affairs and is not ready to listen to our message.

“When I had a lack of live communication, I replaced it with videos on Instagram, in which I chatted about everything,” Lera, a girl with whom we once studied and now follow each other on social networks, tells me. “By filming them, I seemed to stay in touch with people. When I wasn’t feeling well emotionally, I just wrote to everyone. Sometimes networks become the main platform for communication. Let's say, friends who live abroad learn about my life only from there. And sometimes parents too.

— In the digital world it is easier to build communication: you simply show signs of attention by giving a like with one click. And in a dialogue, you can carefully think through what you are going to say,” continues Ekaterina Vinogradova. “Even online quarrels don’t hurt that much.” Because of this simplicity, social interactions are being replaced with their digital copy.

And this is a serious test for real communication. Instead of maintaining a conversation, we are constantly distracted by mobile devices. We spend the evening on the Internet instead of hanging out with friends. We get used to being alone together: we cling to our phones because we are afraid to be alone, and we stay because we hold on very tightly.

8% of people are afraid of losing their smartphone for the opposite reason of the fear of loneliness: they worry that they will not be able to pretend to be busy when they don’t want to talk. These data from a survey by Kaspersky Lab and the analytical company Opeepl indicate that people are increasingly using their phones to cover up their reluctance to communicate.

Does a smartphone affect you?

Absolutely yes. And this influence can hardly be called positive:

• Communication skills are lost. People are so accustomed to correspondence that when they meet in person, they look lost, confused in thoughts and words.
• You don't know what's going on around you. After all, all your attention is attached to the screen, and the surrounding reality, meanwhile, passes you by.
• It is no longer possible to fall asleep quickly and sleep well. When a smartphone is constantly nearby, it causes disturbances in the deep phase of sleep, which is associated with the body resting and recuperating.

This does not mean that gadgets are completely evil. They were created to help people. Today it's easy to find a great coffee shop or make a purchase without leaving your home. But abuse of such opportunities leads to similar consequences.

Or maybe not

In relations with smartphones, not everything is hopelessly bad. It is now more honest to end many horror stories with the phrase “or maybe not.” Often, studies of the impact of gadgets on humans are not statistically convincing because too few volunteers participated. And sometimes scientists are led by the desire to confirm the most frightening hypotheses.

Are smartphones making us lonely? Or maybe not. Extensive research shows that the screen becomes an extension of communication in real life: in the online space, conflicts rage and are resolved in the same way, support is provided, and affection is shown. People use smartphones to strengthen friendships or compensate for lack of friendship in difficult situations. For example, a study of teenagers in foster care found that social networks and gadgets helped young people maintain relationships with their parents, make new friends, and alleviate the stressful process of growing up.

We don't have clear answers, but there is a buzz in society.

“New technologies initially raise concerns: this happened with machine tools, cars, television, even books,” says Ekaterina Lapina-Kratasyuk. “But these fears, as a rule, are of a mystical nature; they are not based on facts. When the first barrier of mistrust is overcome, euphoria arises from the opportunities that technology opens, and public attitudes change to optimistic and uncritical. And at the next stage - simply because the individual experience of users has been accumulated - the downside of technology becomes obvious. As a result, this leads to a more conscious attitude towards the risks associated with them.

“The concern we are seeing right now is the intuitive feeling that smartphones are dangerous. But we cannot say this for sure,” agrees Konstantin Frumkin. — This danger is not obvious. And theoretical reasoning does not force serious opposition. With any technology, it turns out that safety rules are written in blood. First the car appeared, then car accidents began, and then traffic rules and safety systems were invented. And until we see people going crazy from gadgets, or until children have a clear decline in intellectual abilities - until the danger becomes obvious, we will not be able to take action. In the next ten years, I think we will sort this out, and there will be some rules like that you cannot sit at a computer or smartphone for more than a certain time. But while we are arguing whether there is harm from technology, just in case, you can sometimes go on a digital diet or digital detox - this is what they have come to call the voluntary refusal of gadgets for a while.

How to deal with phone addiction

If you begin to notice that you are constantly looking for your smartphone with your hand, checking your email 20 times a day and cannot live for a second without writing to your friends on VKontakte, but at the same time you want to get rid of this illness, then there is a way out. At my consultation, I am ready to help you overcome a disease that is preventing you from leading a full life. In the meantime, I will give a couple of recommendations on how to take the first steps.

Adviсe

• Obviously, you can wean yourself off gadgets only if you stop using them. It sounds quite simple, but in reality it takes a lot of effort. Psychologists recommend that you first stop wearing the device, at least around the house.
• A simple way to wean yourself off your phone is to put it in an inaccessible place, for example, on a closet. Try to turn it on only when really necessary.
• Use your computer to access the Internet. After all, you won’t turn it on to check notifications on social networks, it will take too much time.
• When going for a walk or to the store, leave the device in the apartment and visit areas where there is no WI-FI.
• Help yourself stop. So you go to Telegram to reply to a message, and don’t notice that an hour and a half has already passed. While we are scrolling through the updates, new letters arrive. And so on in a circle. This is a “loop game”, because this condition usually occurs while playing entertainment machines. So set a timer, and when the signal rings, put the device down.

Advice from psychologists

Experts often compare the craving for gadgets with alcohol and drug addiction and gambling addiction. This is a less harmful, but one way or another escape from reality into the virtual world of applications, the life of strangers and fictional characters.

Psychologists advise asking yourself what exactly I am avoiding when I immerse myself in my smartphone. Maybe it's a tool for procrastination that delays doing things that are not very pleasant for you. There is an opinion that constantly scrolling through social media feeds indicates that a person cannot cope with the uncertainty in his life and is constantly stressed.

Just in case, I recommend reading about how to cope with stress. It might come in handy.

We are not talking about those cases when you need your phone to call a taxi, listen to your favorite playlist, or look on the map where the nearest shoe store is. We are talking about uncontrolled immersion in the gadget screen, which takes a lot of time and does not provide any practical benefit.

Let's find out how you can get rid of a bad habit or at least reduce the craving for the phone:

1. Try to figure out what the cause of your addiction is. If this is how you try to entertain yourself, then find an interesting hobby. If this is a reason to put things off, then procrastinate with benefit, for example, do exercises or a head massage.
2. Understand that resting in front of a smartphone screen is only justified after long physical work. If you have been mentally tense, then this method of relaxation will only make the situation worse, because the brain continues to process a huge amount of varied information and, in fact, does not rest, but continues to experience stress. It's like studying.
3. Get rid of habitual behavior patterns. Is your phone always at hand? Then it will not be difficult for you to take it at any time and unlock the screen. Remove the gadget at least from visibility: hide it behind your laptop or put it at a distance beyond arm's length.
4. Track the moment when you picked up your phone again. What do you feel? Perhaps you feel uncomfortable sitting, you are emotionally pinched, embarrassed. Or you're just bored. By catching yourself in certain sensations, you can understand what exactly leads you to the same action.
5. Imagine spaces without phones. Let’s say you shouldn’t go into the bathroom or bedroom with gadgets, and you shouldn’t use them before bed. Give yourself a strict ban on picking up your phone in the company of friends or colleagues. After all, it’s at least not very pleasant when someone in your company is covered with a smartphone screen and falls out of the dialogue.
6. Take note of the one screen rule. If your TV is on, do not pick up your smartphone. If you read a feed on a social network, then turn off the TV. Multitasking is tiring. It may seem like the TV is just talking in the background, but your brain perceives and processes all the noise. You don't notice how overload occurs.
7. Be careful with endless scrolling of the feed. This is a very clever trick that helps draw you into the phone. Experts even compare it to slot machines. We don't know what information we will come across in the next second. This creates an effect of surprise that hooks us into constantly updating the feed, which can be difficult to wean off.
8. Use concentration techniques. When scrolling through news or videos, bring yourself back to the present moment often. Look at your watch, look around the space around you. Perhaps it’s high time to start some task or you need to leave the house soon for an important matter.
9. Give yourself punishment for not following your own rules. For example, if you sit on your phone for more than 10 minutes or pick it up again, do 20 squats. Following muscle fatigue, the craving for a smartphone may also disappear. You can also use it as a “whip” to do household chores, such as washing dishes or dusting.
10. Bet with a friend or colleague who can last longer without a phone. Any application that tracks the time spent on a smartphone will help you monitor compliance with the conditions on both sides. We talked about them in previous paragraphs. The spirit of competition will help you control yourself. The main thing is that the prize must be worth fighting for.

Should you give up your smartphone forever?

In today's fast-paced world, such an act would be irrational. After all, the gadget helps in any situation: call a taxi, order food, call loved ones, look at a map and much more. The tips on how to wean yourself from telephone addiction given above do not encourage you to sell your device. On the contrary, they teach you to control your behavior and value a temporary resource, which today is worth its weight in gold.

In fact, coping with this problem is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. But only on condition that this is not an advanced stage of the disease. In the case when the mere thought that the device is not nearby makes you sweat and panic begins, it is better to turn to specialists.

Method 4: Reset Notifications

Reorganizing your apps will help you avoid wandering around the screen looking for entertainment. However, we live in the era of the attention economy. This means that every application or site is trying to get us to come back to it and spend as much time as possible using various tricks. And the main one is notifications.

Set special vibrations for important notifications

Your phone can vibrate for any reason: you were tagged in a photo, your mom texted you about an emergency, someone followed you on Twitter. In each of these cases, the phone vibrates the same way. This leads to the phenomenon of “phantom vibrations”: we feel vibration in our pocket even when there is none.

Notification streams can be divided as follows. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Notifications > Messages > Sounds > Vibrations > Create New Vibrate.

With this set of actions you set the vibration rhythm for when someone sends a message. Unfortunately, Apple does not allow you to change the vibration type for other applications.