For cell-phone addicts, turning the ringer off is no longer an option
By Cynthia Hubert -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 30, 2005
Sergio Chaparro's information-technology students had more than just a
healthy attachment to their cell phones.
When he asked them to shut them off for three days, they panicked.
"They were afraid. They were truly afraid," Chaparro, then an
instructor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, recalled of the
assignment last year. "They thought it was going to be a painful
experience, and they were right."
Only three of about 220 students managed to complete the assignment.
To Chaparro, now an assistant professor at Simmons College in Boston,
the experiment confirmed what he strongly suspected was a widespread
psychological dependence on cell phones.
"I think it's critical that people realize their level of dependency,
and possibly do something about it," he said.
Business executives. Soccer moms. Travelers. Teenagers. All of them
adore their cell phones. But when does love turn into addiction?
A Korean study found recently that nearly a third of high school
students showed signs of addiction, including paranoia, when they were
without their phones, and two-thirds were "constantly worried" that
they would miss a text message when their phones were off.
In Britain, researchers concluded that people are so intimately
connected with their cell phones that they see them as "an essential
item, an extension of self."
"No other medium has infiltrated society so widely and so quickly" to
alter lifestyles, and "no other portable medium is used so
frequently," wrote researchers for Teleconomy Group. They surveyed 210
consumers about their use of mobile phones.
Here in America, research on emotional attachment to cell phones has
been sparse. But Joseph Tecce, an associate professor of psychology at
Boston College, said it is a rich field to be mined.
Like substance abuse, Tecce said, excessive use of cell phones can
lead to personal problems.
"If you try to exert control over your use of the phone and you can't
do it, that's dependence. That's addiction," said Tecce, who studies
"psychobiological behavior" including addictions and phobias.
"People who instantly reach for the cell phone every time they feel
uneasy or anxious about a problem are relying too much on it," he
said.
Ultimately, said Tecce, such behavior undermines self-reliance and
reduces self-esteem.
"Like many rewarding experiences, leaning heavily on cell phones for
advice or psychological nurturance is effective in reducing anxiety in
the short term, but harmful in the long term," he said.
"How? By taking away control of one's behavior and placing it in the
hands of others. After all, a problem might arise without a handy cell
phone, and then helplessness rules the hour."
Too much yapping on the cell phone, Tecce added, can also lead to "a
constant state of distraction" that "takes away a key component of
happiness, the pleasure of total absorption of one activity to the
exclusion of everything else."
Tecce recommended that cell phone abusers "put themselves on a quota
system, either so many minutes per day or so many calls per day" in an
effort to break a serious habit.
Dependence on electronic devices is hardly limited to cell phones,
said Bill Lampton, a communications specialist and author in Georgia.
Electronic mail, he said, is equally addictive.
"Not long ago my e-mail system was down for 24 hours," recalled
Lampton, author of the book "The Complete Communicator."
"How did I feel? Isolated, marooned, in a sense almost rejected
because I couldn't contact business and personal associates."
As for the cell phone, "It's not an exaggeration to say that it has
become our contemporary pacifier," Lampton said. "As long as we're
holding it, we don't show signs of unrest.
"The difficulty comes when we lose our perspective on a tool that
we're supposed to control - not let control us."
David Mullinax, a lobbyist who does business in Santa Barbara and
Sacramento, admitted an addiction to his BlackBerry, a wireless gadget
that, among other things, transmits e-mail.
"Absolutely," he said. " 'Crack'-Berry is appropriate nomenclature."
Despite his attachment to the device, Mullinax said, it often makes
him feel "bludgeoned with information overload" and ultimately feeling
"weak and ineffectual."
"It's like being caught in a wave and being tossed around like a rag
doll, unable to control where you're going and not able to assimilate
the information into anything truly worthwhile," he said.
Cell phones are particularly seductive because they are relatively
cheap, readily available and highly portable, Chaparro said.
"Society as a whole has created a dependency," he said. Marketing of
cell phones is relentless, and access to pay phones and other "land
lines" is growing more and more limited, Chaparro noted. So people
feel they "have" to carry cell phones. And once they do, they tend to
overuse them.
In his class last year, Chaparro said, he learned "amazing things"
about the cell phone culture of his students.
"For most of them, the phone was a lifeline in many ways," he said. "I
had one student who went on a spring break trip to Florida, lost her
cell phone, and her mom had to FedEx another one from home right away.
She said, 'I didn't feel secure, Sergio. I couldn't even call to rent
a car.' "
Against his better judgment, Chaparro said, he recently broke down and
bought a cell phone for himself.
"And let me tell you, it's addictive," he said. "I have the very
simplest one, the cheapest one ever, no camera, no text, nothing. I
pay the minimum. But sometimes I feel I can't leave home without it."
As cell phones become ubiquitous, with more and more fancy features,
people's "addiction" to them is likely to increase, he said.
"We need some voices out there to tell people to be cautious about
this," Chaparro said. "It's not about stopping progress. Nothing will
stop the cell phone. It's about making people realize that perhaps
they are a little too dependent on them and that maybe there are other
ways to interact."
Addiction unplugged
Are you "addicted" to your cell phone? Communications expert and
author Bill Lampton says you might be if:
* You neglect other responsibilities because you are spending too much
time on the phone.
* You assume that you are always accomplishing something when you are
using your phone.
* You carry the device with you everywhere, "even to football games,
nightclubs and formal banquets."
* You can't resist using your phone even if you challenge yourself to
shut it off for a while.
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-- Britney Spears
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