Too much time on your phone can lead to an imbalance in your brain chemistry and has been linked to depression, anxiety, insomnia, and impulsive behavior.
While smartphone addiction may not be a serious issue for some individuals, addicted users will always require bigger internet bundles than average users and will always charge their phones more times than average users. So this addiction might either be slowly costing you or slowly killing your phone.
It is quite easy to tell whether you have an addiction to your phone or not. Below I have listed a few signs and symptoms for phone addiction and if more than 20% (more than 3 signs) of these apply to you, then you are addicted.
You are addicted to your phone if;
Your phone is always within your reach and you’re constantly checking your notifications and social media all the time.
You repair it instantly when there’s a fault and do whatever it takes to have it back and running in the shortest time possible.
You’re happy when you stay off it for a while and feel some sort of accomplishment for the little time you have been abstaining from its usage. This happens after you realize you have been using your phone a lot and have be told about it by others.
You check your notifications instantly and get distracted during conversations and fail to pay attention to what’s happening in your surroundings.
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You’re anxious when you can’t use your phone and can’t concentrate when you lose it or leave it at home.
You use your phone everywhere even during sex, driving, eating, etc. and find yourself feeling lonely without it. You even use your phone while taking a shower even when you know it’s not water resistant.
You put too much concentration on your phone and at times bump into people and things while using it.
You panic when people are with your phone and feel some sort of nervousness as though the phone won’t be returned to you. Addicted people don’t usually allow others to use their phones even for just a second.
You can’t stop looking at your phone until the moment you close your eyes to sleep. You can’t seem to find sleep while your phone is laying in a different room than yours.
You lose time while using it and sometimes snap back to reality and realize you have been lost in your phone for an extended period of time.
You text more than you talk.
You mindlessly keep scrolling your phone all the time thinking it’s just because you have nothing better to do.
You feel phantom vibrations or imagine your phone ringing and yet there’s nothing there each time you check it.
You can’t quit using your smartphone no matter how hard you try. Even when you set a few minutes of abstaining from using it, you always find yourself violating them.
You have tried hiding your phone’s usage from others who have most likely told you about it.
Smartphone addiction like any other addictions can be difficult to conquer. There has been constantly growing research that reveals excessive phone usage is bad for you. Most application owners of social media apps like Facebook, Twitter and others are currently rolling out features that reveal your usage to help you monitor your level of addiction.
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