This month’s FWD Finds warns you of a future epidemic. We thought of bringing up this topic as one of our colleague had become prey to it. It’s sort of an obsession which can be termed as ‘Smartphone Slavery’. In a world of tablets, smartphones and video games, it’s natural for us to get distracted. “Technological advancements are a boon and bane. While on one side it makes us communicate, travel and save time, in many ways we’re becoming slaves to technology. An overwhelming number of people are addicted to their cell phones and are in denial over it causing restlessness, insomnia, anxiety and even depression,” says Dr. Krishna Prasad Sreedhar, Psychology (Head of Department), University of Kerala.

Cell phone over-use, particularly with respect to its use by teenagers and young adults has been topic of discussion for quite some time. Yet it continues to be an intruder in our social and personal life. “In a marriage it comes in between a husband and wife in the form of a ‘lover’ who steals a lot of their ‘We’ time. Counsellors have received complaints that when one of the couples wanted to be with the other, he/she was found romancing with the iPhone,” he adds.

Several times we get hold of our phones not necessarily because we really need to check them that many times, but for the reason that it has become a compulsion or an addiction. A new study has come out with an astonishing fact that people don’t spare their Smartphones even during private times on the john. Now that evidently shows how intimate we are to this digital Swiss army knife that has replaced alarm clocks, watches, cameras, books and even lifelong friends.

FWD Finds Smartphone Addiction How to conclude whether a person is a Smartphone addict or not? “Addiction is a condition that fallout when a person ingests a substance (alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (gambling) that can be pleasurable, but the continued use of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships or health. And here the object of dependence is the Smartphone.

“Nomophobia or the fear of being without a smart phone is the foremost indication. It is a rush of anxiety or fear which he/she undergoes on being technologically disconnected from the loop of friends, family, work and the world. ‘Phantom Cell phone Vibration Syndrome’, a compulsive need to check the mobile for each buzz is an added symptom,” says Vipin V Roldant, HOD and Chief Consultant Psychologist, Sunrise Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi. “Flipping through tweets, checking mails in between face-to-face conversations, logging into Facebook many times a day, an emotion of incompleteness until a picture is posted on FB, recklessness, mood swings, cellphone use on the dining table are all noteworthy signs of Smartphone addiction,” he adds.

If you’re a tech savvy person, do you know that your Smartphone has a new feature? Along with the fancy features a Smartphone promises, it also has a feature that makes the user obese. Constant users are found to be more inclined towards sedentary behaviour, and medical practitioners have also revealed that cases of lower levels of cardio respiratory fitness are more often found in them than those who use their phones reasonably.

Posture -have you ever considered for a moment, your position when you’re focused on the small screen of your Smartphone? The longer we continue to be in an ergonomically wrong posture, faster our body reacts with some sort of
a payoff. It could be a neck pain, back pain, text claws or sore eyes. Most of us look down while using a mobile phone. Experts have conducted studies that this prolonged bending down is a posture that adds strain to the neck and a position that could cause  cervical disc herniation. Staring at iphone screens for long hours can also cause dry our eyes and believed to be a reason for cataract in future. Being glued to tech devices have also resulted in soreness and cramping of fingers, commonly known as text claws. It’s a physical condition called tendinitis that causes inflammation of tendons and of the cords that attach bones to the muscles.

FWD Finds Smartphone Addiction The major reason for the stiffness of fingers is the overuse and repetitive motions of the hands or fingers. And many times your rhythmic use of fingers can aggravate the pain and take it to the next stage of leading the pain to the wrist and forearm. If medical attention is not given at the right time, muscles can become fibrotic and scarred, leading to loss of strength in hands and fingers, followed by unbearable pain. Putting hands together in a prayer-type gesture and holding it for several seconds once in a while after texting can be a good work out for your hands to prevent them from being anesthetized of
tendinitis.

As for school-going kids, the overuse of technology takes a toss on their academic performance, health and behavioural patterns. “Kids who are so engrossed in their Smartphone slowly but surely tend to lose interest in spending time with family and in due course become aggressive,” says Vipin. In children, excessive iPhone use can affect them both physically and mentally. “Children as they grow undergo two processes – growth and development of the brain and body. Gadgets like these retards growth in  children resulting in ill health and obesity. Modern education emphasizes ‘mental speed’ and modern devices do increase a child’s mental speed but their ‘problem solving  capacity’ in real life situation may become poor as it requires not only mental speed but also physical speed,” says Dr. Krishna. He believes that the latter can be acquired only through actual physical and motor activities like running and climbing. They must be exposed to cooperative play situations with friends which are deprived in the above gadgets.

There are things Smartphones give us that no sane person would choose to forgo. But then I too feel a digital detox once in a blue moon can mean a lot to our draining health. So let’s try making Smartphone’s our slaves rather than the other way round.