Just looking at the undulating lines of shoppers waiting around the clock for the latest iPhone has to get you wondering what the big deal is. It is a thoughtful look at a phenomenon that has resulted in otherwise sane and responsible people behaving in a manner that may very well be classified as an addiction. Yes, there is such a thing as smartphone addiction. In fact, the term for it, coined by British researchers in 2008, is nomophobia (no-mobile-phone-phobia). Thus, nomophobia is the fear of being without your smartphone.
You might not be at the point where you are interested in giving up your smartphone. If that thought gives you a case of the jitters, maybe you are not ready just yet. On the other hand, if you find that you are considerably less satisfied with your life of late, find yourself overly anxious, stressed out, feeling like you are missing something if you cannot instantly connect with whoever you want whenever you want, you may want to consider doing something about your smartphone addiction.
The first thing you can and should do is put down your smartphone. Unplug it. Leave it at home or locked up in the car. Now, you notice if you can make it through the day without using your smartphone.
If that seems out of the question for you, at least try to limit the amount of time you spend on the smartphone. You should not allow yourself to check it so often to see if you’ve missed any messages. Put it on silent mode so that you do not hear the texts coming in, for heaven’s sake!
Full-blown smartphone addiction will require more drastic measures. While rehab for smartphone addiction may be quite rare at present, with the statistics growing exponentially of people with the condition, it is only a matter of time before more research-based treatment is incorporated into addiction treatment facilities.
One treatment center in California has individuals divested their smartphones for a period of 10 days. Doesn’t it sound extreme? It really is not when you think about it. What happens is the individual, who at first goes through a kind of withdrawal that’s as anxiety-ridden and can cause physical discomfort akin to mild substance abuse withdrawal symptoms, gradually sees that life moves at a much less frenetic pace.
Appreciation of what is happening at the moment, in the here and now with others who are present, as opposed to a voice on a smartphone or a text appearing in that small visible space on the screen, comes as a rather profound realization. It is a gift, really, and one that causes the person learning how to manage smartphone addiction to begin to see that life has a lot more to offer when they are not being closed off and isolated with their smartphone.
Of course, there is more to it than just ditching their smartphones for ten days. Counseling and other forms of therapy help the individual learn how to get along without being so tethered to an electronic device.
