Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone?

If you’re reading this on your phone, do yourself a favor and put it down.

Now go find yourself blunt object — a hammer, preferably — and start smashing away.

Don’t have a hammer? That’s OK. You can achieve the same effect with any of the following actions:

• Drowning it in the toilet
• Cooking it in the microwave
• Tossing it in a Blendtec (Yes, it will blend) 
• Throwing it off any high-rise building (Do not attempt with a Nokia — you might kill someone)

If you’re wondering by now why I’m having you destroy your phone, don’t: You’re wasting precious time. The longer you wait, the worse this is going to be. Just trust me on this.

I’ll give you a few moments to carry out the deed, and I’ll explain everything when you get to a desktop…

Ah, welcome back. I’m sure that wasn’t an easy thing to do, but you did it, and we’re all very proud of you.

The reason I had you destroy your phone (and I hate to say it) is this: You’re an addict, dear reader… a stone-cold addict.

Now, if you don’t believe me, that’s OK. The first step is realizing you have a problem, so let’s work on that by reviewing a few facts:

On average, the typical American spends 162 minutes on his or her mobile device every day. That’s 82 hours every month, or over 41 days each year.

This means you probably spent around six weeks fiddling on your phone in 2014 and were on track (prior to destroying your phone just now) to spend another six weeks fiddling in 2015 (you’re welcome).

Just imagine what you could have accomplished last year with those extra six weeks of time…

You could have removed a few strokes off your golf game. You could have spent some quality time with your friends and family. You could have even read George R.R. Martin’s entire A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series 10 times over (assuming 300 words per minute).

More importantly, though, you could have improved your psychological state. We’ve long been warned that spending as much time as we do on our phones is detrimental to our well being, and an increasing number of studies are backing that claim…

Post-Traumatic iPhone Disorder

According to a new study published by the University of Missouri last week, we are, in fact, so connected to our phones by now that removing them from our presence can actually result in “negative psychological and physiological outcomes.”

Specifically, subjects who were separated from their iPhones during a series of cognitive tests performed lower on word search puzzles, reported higher levels of anxiety and unpleasantness, and showed physiological effects of stress including increased heart rate and blood pressure.

The researchers believe these effects are due to a phenomenon known as “The Extended iSelf,” which suggests many of us have, knowingly or unknowingly, allowed our mobile devices to become an extension of our identities. When we lose control of this extension, we become psychologically and physiologically distressed.

A related term for this is nomophobia — or the fear of being without one’s phone. In a survey of 1,000 UK citizens taken in 2012, it was found that 66% of the population was nomophobic, with some demographics (ages 18 to 24, specifically) reaching a rate as high as 77%.

Making matters worse, the trend is becoming more prevalent every year.

And if you still need some additional convincing, consider the following facts:

• 65% of Americans sleep next to their smartphones
• 34% admit to having answered their phones during intimacy with a partner
• 20% would rather go without shoes than their smartphones for a week
• More than half never turn their phones off

Yet in light of all this information, no one reading this is actually going to get rid of or stop using their phone. In fact, most of us are going to become even more connected in 2015 than we ever have before.

Why? Because we’re addicts.

No Turning Back…

If you’re sensing some distaste from my end regarding society’s obsession with phones, you’re right on the money.

I, like many people, loathe spending time with people who can’t keep their phones in their pockets for more than five minutes. Not only is it rude to take out your phone constantly, but it often hinders the conversation.

Yet my personal disapproval (or anyone else’s) of the way we use our phones doesn’t change reality: We are becoming increasingly dependent (read: obsessed) with mobile devices, and nothing can be done to stop it.

Singularity, Here We Come

We are, at this very moment in time, a society of quasi-cyborgs — though we’re not yet physically connected to technology, we are definitely there in spirit.

For me, coming to terms with this psychological dependence on technology has been a rather bittersweet revelation.

On one hand, it pains me to see younger generations developing an addiction to their phones stronger than that of alcohol and tobacco. On the other, it’s made it incredibly easy to choose long-term investments.

Now, as offbeat as that may seem, it’s nothing short the truth. Addiction is not something that goes away, and neither is psychological and physiological dependence.

If there’s one thing the four-decade drug war has taught is, it’s that there’s always a market for habit-causing products, even if you try to fight it.

If you happen to think the analogy is too strong, I leave you with this, an image of Josef Poulissen caught smuggling heroin through UK customs in 2010:

Followed by an image of this unnamed man caught smuggling 94 iPhone 6s through Chinese customs earlier this week.

Strong demand for the iPhone this year? Yeah, I’d say so.

Until next time,

Jason Stutman

Check us out on YouTube!