FOR MOBILE ADDICTS

Cell out

Are you as attached to your mobile as you are to your kidneys? Free yourself from the digital obsession. Help is at hand.

This is an intervention. Kindly put away your cell phone and take a much-needed break. You may smugly be in denial but compulsive communicating, it has been established, is a serious addiction. So if your phone accompanies you from the boardroom to bedroom to bathroom, you may need to reassess your relationship with it.
While studies across the world have been reasserting how cell phone dependency is a clear, present and future danger, UK researchers have recently discovered another facet to the malaise: Smartphone users suffer from anxiety and withdrawal symptoms when they do not receive any messages or updates. Many of us will identify with what the researchers found in common among the phoneobsessed — phantom vibrations; that feeling of your cell phone ringing even when it isn’t. Also, when stressed, people check their phones more often and when they find no new updates, their stress levels shoot up, the study found.
Constantly checking your cell phone may only be a manifestation of complex underlying problems. Clinical psychologist Seema Hingorrany says an overwhelming number of people are addicted to their cell phones and are in denial over it causing restlessness, insomnia, anxiety and even depression. “I have come across so many such patients who can’t sleep without their cell phones next to them. They are so anxious to keep checking their phones for messages or alerts that they end up sleeping very late or losing it. The root causes of this dependency — be it loneliness, lack of self-esteem or need of constant validation — need to be tackled. For people coming to empty houses or dealing with difficult circumstances, their cell phone becomes their ‘only friend’. They don’t realise how unhealthy such a belief can be. What this leads to is a wandering, unfocussed mind at work or at study, which continually breeds low attention and concentration.”
With smart phones, American psychologists have found that the same associative learning pathways get triggered in our brain which make other compulsive behaviours, such as gambling, so addictive. The fact that our brain’s insular cortex, which is associated with feelings of love and compassion, gets activated, points to how most of us start ‘loving’ our phones as we do our spouse or family member. Also, similar to drugs or cigarette addiction, the feelgood neurotransmitter dopamine chemically drives this process. So instead of ‘the classic brain-based signs of addiction’, the subjects were found to, worse, ‘love’ their smart phones. Hingorrany says, “Like in any addiction, cortisol levels shoot up in cell phone addicts too and hence their anxiety to always be available to others or know what’s going on in the world. They develop unreal expectations from people to immediately message or call them back.”
This is what happened to a 40-year-old homemaker who found herself hooked to her cell phone after she gave birth to a child three years ago. “I was suffering from low selfesteem and severe depression —most probably post-partum,” she says. “I would spend hours on the phone; mostly messaging, some times calling friends and acquaintances, and all the time expecting an immediate response. If I didn’t get a response within 10 minutes, I would flip out and call them to ask why they hadn’t responded. That would piss off many people but not doing so would depress me beyond control. I would keep checking my phone for messages or updates everywhere; at kitchen, while driving, walking and even at the shower. If the notification light flashed, I had to check it…instantly.” She says she knew her behaviour was abnormal, not because it made her perennially anxious or unfocussed, but because of how dependent it made her feel. “Therapy helped me tremendously. From making a list of things that bother me to exorcising all bad childhood memories, everything has helped me become better at this. I still check my phone often, but I can manage to stay away from it for hours. When I think about it now, it is really scary that my phone had become my best friend.”
To treat cell phone addicts, psychologists resort to therapies that are meant for patients of anxiety, insomnia or obsessive thoughts.
Hingorrany stresses on increasing the
addict’s self-worth. “It may be reading more to feel more knowledgeable or working out to feel better about one’s body,” says Hingorrany. “I treated a 19-year-old college girl for Facebook and cell phone addiction. She would be glued to her phone and sleep only at 4.30 AM. She felt unwanted and rejected, and when she saw the merry updates of others, she would get further depressed about her ‘unexciting’ life,” Hingorrany says. After having slowly dissociated herself from cell phones, the girl reconnected with her dancing instinct and is now happy to have made new friends, who she meets often — and talks little to, on her phone.
You are addicted if...
» You use it to flip through tweets, punch in messages or browse the web while you are on the pot.
» You keep checking it and using it even in the midst of a face-to-face conversation.
» Your heart misses a beat when you step out and realise that you have left your phone behind. Never mind that you are just going down the road to buy groceries.
» You feel left out, low or edgy if your phone is inactive or you are offline for hours.
» If it flashes or buzzes, no matter what you are doing, you instinctively reach for it and respond.
» You were on the phone when your spouse, child, friend or parents said something important and now you can't remember the details.
» You have installed two dozen apps and use them all pretty regularly.
» You have to charge your phone more than once a day.
» You always talk about your phone.
» A meal, movie or outing is not complete until you have posted a picture or your opinion of it online.
Re-hab
» Switch off your phone before you go to sleep. Put it to charge in another room, or just at the other corner of the room so that you have to walk to get to it. This cuts the temptation of reading while in bed.
» Have a strict no-phone rule at the dinner table. Or at least keep the ringer off.
» Avoid long chats or constant messaging on the phone -- meet the friend instead
» Question yourself to understand the real reasons for your addiction.
» Put off your ringer every now and then, especially in the company of family or friends.
» This may be blasphemous, but turn off your notification alerts. This means no scrambling to respond to them immediately -- you can do that at your leisure.
» Don't wander off into the Web on the phone when you picked it up to send a message or search an item. Stick to the task and then put the phone down.

(Anand.Holla MM 10Jan12)