Addiction to your phone and its apps is real and can have many negative effects on your health, a new study reveals.
Dr. Eric Lim and his co-authors discovered that the addiction comes from the dopamine response that is given when using your phone and that people can become seriously addicted.
The dopamine hit lures phone users back every day and that’s when problems can really arise.
studying A direct correlation has also been found between phone addiction and something called nomophobia – the fear of being without or unable to use a mobile phone.
Phone addiction has been found to be associated with sleep deprivation and overall poor health.
Dr Lim is from the UNSW Business School and is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Information Systems and Technology Management.
He and his team looked to “uncover the effects of mobile application usage on users”.
“It becomes a vicious cycle where the more we plug in, the more we need these apps to deliver ever-innovative content to keep us hooked on the dopamine they provide,” Dr Lim said. Medical Express.
Some may try to argue that having constant access to our phones has made us more aware as a society, but Dr. Lim believes that at the expense of addiction and health – it’s not worth it.
He also highlighted that this has driven an “attention economy” where companies are now literally fighting for your attention for money when you could be productive instead.
“We become willing products in the attention economy, but I don’t believe we’re better off in this economy even if we become more aware and hyper-plugged into what’s happening in this world,” says Dr Lim.
Research published by Virgin Mobile found that the billion smartphone users receive 427 percent more messages and notifications than a decade ago.
These users text 278 percent more, According to the Addiction Center.
Also, since 2004, searches for “cell phone addiction” have been on the rise, according to Google Trends.
