PHONOHOLISM – smarthpone addiction
- autorzy: Joanna i Jarek Burdek - założyciele projektu Offlajnowi.pl
- August 7, 2024
Table of contents
You reach for your phone because you want to relax. You turn on a game, open social media or TikTok, scroll through videos, because you have nothing to do you in your free time. You do it even while watching series, instinctively . The problem is that even after a 30-minute session you do not feel better at all.
You often feel higher stress, excitement, you don’t even know what is happening to you. Sometimes you spend hours on such doomscrolling and you feel guilty or that time is slipping through your fingers.
What is Phonoholism – the definition of phonoholism
Phonoholism is just smartphone addiction. When you use it too much, you cannot do without it, you constantly use it, you reach for it first thing in the morning and in the evening, you fall asleep with your phone. Those may be signs of an addiction.
Causes of phonoholism (smartphone addiction) – why are phones addictive.
Ultra-easy entertainment vs “difficult” actions
As people, like simple and easy things, including entertainment which we get on our phones. It is much easier to “sit” with it instead of reading a book, training, studying. That is (also) why we choose it.
A smartphone gives you access to very engaging content. You practically do not have to do anything to enjoy it, and what is as important – you do not need to think. BJ Fogg, a famous scientist who researches habits, tested when people perform certain actions. In order to do something, 3 conditions must be met:
you need to have motivation
you need to have the ability, it must be adequately simple
you need to get a stimulus
BJ. Fogga Graph
BJ Fogg’s Graph, Source: B. Wouters, J. Growns, Online influence
Now think about it. When does a person reach for their phone? This graph shows that using a phone does not require either a high level of motivation or complicated abilities from a person. When you get a notification, you reach for your phone immediately. Because it is that easy . On the other hand, sport (e.g. a gym session) requires much more motivation from us and is not always that simple. Especially if the training requires going to the gym. You need to change clothes, go outside etc.
People’s tendency of choosing the simplest solutions has historical background:
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From an evolutionary perspective, this bias for ease is useful. For most of human history it’s been crucial to our survival and progress. Just imagine if humans had a bias for the path of most resistance. What if our ancestors had been wired to ask, “What’s the hardest way to obtain food? To provide our family shelter? To maintain relationships within our tribe?” They wouldn’t have made it”
Greg McKeown Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most
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Easy access to a smartphone – here begins the phonoholism
Doing things the easy way is a human trait which facilitated our growth and progress. However, in this case another human tendency came into play: immoderacy. We often do things which do not require any effort from us. And we have everything on our phone: a telephone, a camera, access to online shopping, making phone calls, contact with people close to us. It replaced a lot of our devices. And that also create Smartphone addiction.
Causes of addiction (Phonoholism) – why is it so engaging? I
It is not a coincidence that it is engaging. In a phenomenal book called Four Thousand Weeks, O. Burkemann points out the fact that the Internet is designed in such a way that companies can make money off of it. If you have a free app, in reality you pay for it with your attention and time: Each time you open a social media app, there are “a thousand people on the other side of the screen” paid to keep you there”. They designed this “engagement” of yours.
Phonoholism. Why is it so easy to become addicted to our phones?
People have been looking for new information for generations. This is what evolution is all about. When we gain new knowledge, we get flooded with dopamine. Just the same as when you go to the gym, because your favorite set of exercises awaits you. Dopamine is the hormone of (pleasure) anticipation. When you use the internet and social media, you make it directly flood your brain, making you want more and more of it. Think of how much interesting content is waiting for you as soon as you turn on your smartphone.
But the more dopamine you “take ”, the more your brain wants of it to achieve the same level of pleasure. It’s like stimulants, only in this case the drug is the screen. It is addictive, especially to children, whose brains are not fully developed and cannot fully deal with dopamine or temptations yet.
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“The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.”
Source: Lembke Anna, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
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As you get used to the higher doses of dopamine that short posts and videos give you, you start to experience more and more problems. You cannot focus on doing longer series of exercises, on reading, watching longer content, you get irritated waiting longer for results. Because you want a quick dose of happiness in each case.
Take away your child’s smartphonesmartphone, seriously!
SmartphoneSmartphone use (and phonoholism) starts as early as childhood. Behavioral addictions take a huge toll on children and teenagers.
We teach little children that when they are whiny, for example in a car, they will instantly get the phone. As a result, a phone is something which allows us not to feel more serious emotions since childhood. Only run from them. We are bored – – tap, on the phone. We feel bad – tap, on the phone. Stress – you guessed it: phone! And the same all the time.
Now imagine that someone like this starts to train. You know that it takes time, many hours of painstaking exercise and repetition. Sometimes it takes even months for results to become visible. Such expectations of immediate results in training are the first step to not exercising at all.
Symptoms of addiction (Phonoholism) – kinds of symptoms of smartphone addiction
You are constantly on your phone, you feel overwhelmed with information.
Your phone takes more of your time than other activities outside of work and school.
Extreme case: you do not need them, because you have your phone.
Overusing your phone takes a toll on the relationship with your family (and other people).
You often feel nervous or down. You’re in a depressed mood.
You reach for your phone when you are stressed or when you want to calm down.
You do not have many other activities and less social interactions in the real world.
You have trouble sleeping.You often fall asleep in front of a smartphone screen. The first thing you do in new places is look for cellphone reception.
The first thing you do in new places is look for cellphone reception.
You spend a very long time on social networks.
Using your phone is the first thing you do when you wake up.
You cannot imagine a day without a messaging app or texting your friends.
You have many apps installed on your phone.
You constantly search for some information on your phone, because you “need to know”.
You spend time on social media at work or at school.
You cannot focus.
You neglect household responsibilities.
You tried using your phone less many times before.
You react to notifications like a child to sweets.
Phonoholism- test (Smartphone addiction) – how to diagnose addiction?
https://offlajnowi.pl/uzaleznienie-od-telefonu-czy-to-masz/
The effects of addiction (The Effects of Phonoholism)
Spending time on your phone comes with consequences for our brains and the whole body. It is not just a problem for “hard users.” Phonoholism, or phone addiction, now affects a huge part of society.
And what are the consequences of excessive internet and phone use?
Smartphone next to the bed – interferes with concentration, memory and sleep.
Smartphone next to us: we learn worse, remember less.
More frequent use causes: stress, depression, anxiety, increases lack of patience.
Ignoring our smartphone: eats up our energy, makes us tired, because we constantly have to hold back! And when someone takes away our cellphone – cortisol (stress hormone) levels rise.
Using social media on a smartphone and constantly comparing ourselves with others gives us a worse mood, we are more miserable, the risk of depression increases.
Information overload – you have too much information, you do not know what to choose, you do not know what to focus on.
Problems with concentration, memory and distraction – you only vaguely jump through information on the Internet, on top of that you do not need to remember it, because everything can be looked up,
FOMO (fear of missing out) – you are constantly on your phone because you are afraid you will miss out on something,
Social withdrawal and loneliness – online relationships can replace those in real life, we find it harder to meet others, to leave our homes,
The more smartphone and social media, the worse the sleep! The blue light emitted by a smartphonedelays the secretion of the sleep hormone (melatonin), the brain thinks it is earlier than it really is. During sleep, the brain cleanses itself of toxins and arranges information. Sleeping disorders have a negative impact on training and reduce its effectiveness.
These are just some of the effects of excessive smartphone and social media use.
Treating Phonoholism
What is the remedy for this? First, put down your smartphone, and second, start moving!
Once upon a time, when people had to flee from wild animals, our lives depended on physical fitness. This is (also) why the brain likes it when we are in shape. People in shape are much less likely to suffer from depression and are happier. It can be said that sports alleviates (at least a little) the negative effects of phonoholism. Sport is the best antidote to stress. And training with a trainer is a form of real social relations that we miss so much.
Unplug, it is worth it
The head needs to rest. It is not used to such a dose of information, it needs to breathe, it needs to get bored sometimes! And the body needs rest. And it does not rest when the brain struggles here and there. To be calm, it is worth to unplug.
Phonoholism. What can you do today?
Don’t underestimate how you feel. Phonoholism is a serious threat to your life. Sometimes an addicted person spends time in front of a smartphone screen instead of doing daily chores. Getting addicted to smartphones is a gradual process. It cannot end well in the long run! Eventually, you will use your phone to handle most activities and spend most of your day on it. That is why, regardless of the degree of addiction, it is recommended to get help from a specialist and overcome your phone addiction. Before it overcomes your life. Here is what you can do today to spend less time in front of your smartphone screen:
Get help from a specialist (psychotherapist). This will definitely help you overcome your addiction faster.
Turn off all notifications.
Uninstall social media apps from your phone.
Uninstall messaging apps from your phone.
Use social media exclusively on your laptop.
Start controlling how much time you spend on social media.
If you cannot stop yourself – set an hourly limit.
Want to know if you are addicted?
Take a smartphone addiction test for yourself
Take a social media addiction test for yourself
Remember. Developing healthy habits takes time. It will not happen right away. But if you feel that you are or may be addicted to your smartphone – start taking action today, before you lose control of your life and the only deep relationship you have is the one with your phone.
The originators of the project are Joanna and Jarosław – – a married couple working as brand strategists, academic lecturers and neurocopywriting experts.
In recent years of the development of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence, we have observed what influence technology has on our life and people close to us. For years, we have been teaching companies how to create content for the brain to believe in.
We have found out about the influence our work has on people. Because the more content you produce, the more content there is in the world, the more reaches clients, taking up their attention and building up this glass screen generation.
That is why we speak up about this today. How to handle technology and use it wisely. How not to be taken advantage of.
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