Modern day phones are essential, not just to communication, but for measuring your heart rate and keeping you alive. If you toddle off to school and accidentally leave your phone at home, it’s an issue, right?
It’s called ‘phone separation anxiety’. There’s a ramped-up version called nomophobia – the fear of being without your smartphone. It’s an actual thing and it affects people of all ages.
Dr Kim Ki Joon commented, ‘The findings of our study suggest that users perceive smartphones as their extended selves and get attached to the devices… people experience feelings of anxiety and unpleasantness when separated from their phones.’
Professor Mark Griffiths weighs in, linking it to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). He says ‘People don’t use their phones to talk to other people – we are talking about an internet-connected device that allows people to deal with lots of aspects of their lives,’ he says. ‘You would have to surgically remove a phone from a teenager because their whole life is ingrained in this device.’
Griffiths thinks attachment theory, where we develop emotional dependency on the phone because it holds details of our lives, is a small part of nomophobia. For ‘screenagers’, it is FOMO that creates the most separation anxiety. If they can’t see what’s happening on Snapchat or Instagram, they become panic-stricken about not knowing what’s going on socially, ‘But they adapt very quickly if you take them on holiday and there’s no internet,’ says Griffiths.
So let’s get this right, the top tip by the academic is this: ‘turning your phone off or leaving it at home can reduce dependency and anxiety.’ I’m sure Prof Griffith’s is a nice person but what’s his first name? Sherlock?
