Smartphone addiction

DO you find it hard to ignore new emails, texts and images, even while spending time with family and friends? If so, it is time to mend your manners, as a new study says that overuse of smartphones is just like any other type of substance abuse.

The findings published in the journal NeuroRegulation also showed those who used their phones the most reported higher levels of feeling isolated, lonely, depressed and anxious.

“The behavioural addiction of smartphone use begins forming neurological connections in the brain in ways similar to how opioid addiction is experienced – gradually,” explained study co-author Erik Peper, Professor at San Francisco State University in the US.

The study involving 135 participants showed that addiction to social media technology may actually have a negative effect on social connection. The researchers believe the loneliness is partly a consequence of replacing face-to-face interaction with a form of communication where body language and other signals cannot be interpreted.

They also found the heaviest smartphone users almost constantly multi-tasked while studying, watching other media, eating or attending class.

This constant activity results in “semi-tasking”, where people do two or more tasks at the same time – but half as well as they would have if focused on one task at a time, Peper said.

Push notifications and other alerts on our phones and computers make us look at them by triggering the same pathways in our brains that once alerted us to danger, researchers said. – IANS