Many people get an uneasy feeling of being without a mobile phone for just a short period of time, and scientists now believe they understand why this happens.
‘Smartphone separation anxiety’ it is not about being unable to make
calls but rooted in the fact smartphones are where we store digital
memories, a new study has found.
For many people posting on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is part of
how they experience life with their phones acting extensions of their
being – which is why being without them can feel like losing a limb.
A study by Sungkyunkwan University and City University of Hong Kong
found this condition – known as nomophobia – is only getting worse as
our digital assistants being increasingly personalised.
Symptoms include being unable to turn off your phone, obsessively
checking your phone, constantly topping up the battery and taking your
phone to the bathroom.
‘As smartphones evoke more personal memories, users extend more of their
identity onto their smartphones,’ researchers, led by Dr Kim Ki Joon,
wrote in the paper, published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social
Networking.
‘When users perceive smartphones as their extended selves, they are more
likely to get attached to the devices, which, in turn, leads to
nomophobia by heightening the phone proximity-seeking tendency’, they
said.
Researchers warned that this trend is likely to continue as phones carry out more and more functions.
Culled from Mailonline