News Medical
Cell phone and instant messaging addictions are similar to compulsive buying or substance addiction and are driven by materialism and impulsiveness, says a Baylor University study in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.
The data emerged from a self-report survey of 191 college undergraduates to measure materialism, impulsiveness, and mobile phone and instant messaging addiction (MPA and IMA). In the study, impulsivity was shown to increase both MPA and IMA to a similar degree; however, materialism had an even larger effect on the two factors.
Previous research has shown that young adults are profligate mobile phone users, sending on average 109.5 texts and checking their phones around 60 times in a typical day. However, this disproportionate use is not simply a youthful fad, as a body of evidence has shown that the psychologic compulsion behind this excess is very similar to drug addictions.
... In the press statement and accompanying interview, Roberts explains that technologic addictions (a subset of behavioral addictions) are no different from substance addictions in that users get some kind of reward from cell phone use, resulting in pleasure. He adds: "Cell phones are a part of our consumer culture, as both a tool and status symbol. They're also eroding our personal relationships. A majority of young people claim that losing their cell phone would be disastrous to their social lives."
The authors conclude that, owing to the multiple functions performed by cell phones, researchers should "dig beneath" the technology per se and examine the activities or "apps" that are driving dependency.
The data emerged from a self-report survey of 191 college undergraduates to measure materialism, impulsiveness, and mobile phone and instant messaging addiction (MPA and IMA). In the study, impulsivity was shown to increase both MPA and IMA to a similar degree; however, materialism had an even larger effect on the two factors.
Previous research has shown that young adults are profligate mobile phone users, sending on average 109.5 texts and checking their phones around 60 times in a typical day. However, this disproportionate use is not simply a youthful fad, as a body of evidence has shown that the psychologic compulsion behind this excess is very similar to drug addictions.
... In the press statement and accompanying interview, Roberts explains that technologic addictions (a subset of behavioral addictions) are no different from substance addictions in that users get some kind of reward from cell phone use, resulting in pleasure. He adds: "Cell phones are a part of our consumer culture, as both a tool and status symbol. They're also eroding our personal relationships. A majority of young people claim that losing their cell phone would be disastrous to their social lives."
The authors conclude that, owing to the multiple functions performed by cell phones, researchers should "dig beneath" the technology per se and examine the activities or "apps" that are driving dependency.
Huffington Post
Baylor University and Seton Hall University researchers found that materialism and impulsiveness lie behind compulsive cell-phone use and instant messaging tendencies. Their findings are published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.
Although cell phone addiction can be hard to define and is not yet defined in the DSM, experts say it is most often characterized by feelings of withdrawal if you don't have it, compulsive checking of the phone, and using it to feel good.
"At first glance, one might have the tendency to dismiss such aberrant cell phone use as merely youthful nonsense -- a passing fad," study researcher James Roberts, Ph.D., a professor of marketing at Baylor University, said in a statement. "But an emerging body of literature has given increasing credence to cell phone addiction and similar behavioral addictions."
The study is based on questionnaire results from 191 college students. The questionnaires were meant to assess the students' levels of impulsivity and materialism, as well as possible addiction to instant messaging and cell-phone use, using a metric called the Mobile Phone and Instant Messaging Addictive Tendencies Scale.
The researchers found a relationship between levels of impulsivity and materialism, and how likely the students were to express dependence on instant messaging or cell-phone use.
"However, researchers must be aware that one's addiction may not simply be to the cell phone, but to a particular activity or function of the cell phone," they wrote in the study. "The emergence of multi-function smart phones requires that research must dig beneath the technology being used to the activities that draw the user to the particular technology."
Although cell phone addiction can be hard to define and is not yet defined in the DSM, experts say it is most often characterized by feelings of withdrawal if you don't have it, compulsive checking of the phone, and using it to feel good.
"At first glance, one might have the tendency to dismiss such aberrant cell phone use as merely youthful nonsense -- a passing fad," study researcher James Roberts, Ph.D., a professor of marketing at Baylor University, said in a statement. "But an emerging body of literature has given increasing credence to cell phone addiction and similar behavioral addictions."
The study is based on questionnaire results from 191 college students. The questionnaires were meant to assess the students' levels of impulsivity and materialism, as well as possible addiction to instant messaging and cell-phone use, using a metric called the Mobile Phone and Instant Messaging Addictive Tendencies Scale.
The researchers found a relationship between levels of impulsivity and materialism, and how likely the students were to express dependence on instant messaging or cell-phone use.
"However, researchers must be aware that one's addiction may not simply be to the cell phone, but to a particular activity or function of the cell phone," they wrote in the study. "The emergence of multi-function smart phones requires that research must dig beneath the technology being used to the activities that draw the user to the particular technology."
Psychology Today
College students are the heaviest users of information and communication technology and an overwhelming number of them own smart-phones and use them throughout their day—sending an average of 109.5 text messages a day, receiving just as many each day, and checking their cell phones 60 times on an average day.
The major problem as I see it is not so much you get a buzz, a text, or an alert, or a fresh new email from a friend, relative, or potential lover—and the rewarding hit of brain neuro-chemicals these elicit—hence the term ‘crackberry’—the problem is when no one is there. The intolerable gaps of time between contacts, might be tiny, but can feel like eons filled with soul-shrivelling loneliness and dejection.
Visionary Marshall McLuhan said we have become global wanderers, information gatherers rather than food gatherers. He also said that societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which humans communicate than by the content of the communication.
The major problem as I see it is not so much you get a buzz, a text, or an alert, or a fresh new email from a friend, relative, or potential lover—and the rewarding hit of brain neuro-chemicals these elicit—hence the term ‘crackberry’—the problem is when no one is there. The intolerable gaps of time between contacts, might be tiny, but can feel like eons filled with soul-shrivelling loneliness and dejection.
Visionary Marshall McLuhan said we have become global wanderers, information gatherers rather than food gatherers. He also said that societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which humans communicate than by the content of the communication.