healthmedicinet

According to a Kent State University study, smartphones may be causing anxiety and depression, physical unfitness, and even poor grades in today’s college students.

Results showed that excessive cell phone use was correlated to lower GPA as well as higher levels of anxiety. And having a higher GPA was correlated to higher levels of happiness.

“Thus, for the population studied, high frequency cell phone users tended to have lower GPA, higher anxiety, and lower satisfaction with life (happiness) relative to their peers who used the cell phone less often.” (Kent State News)

The study identified low-frequency users who were able to check their texts and emails and social media and then let go and get back to schoolwork and social life; and high-frequency users who were simply not able to unplug.

Is it possible that smart phone use (and computer use, too) is slightly reminiscent of slot-machine use and perhaps even related to a gambling addiction?

Does your heart start beating a bit quicker when your text message chimes or beeps? Like a gambler who responds to a jack-pot jingle, is the cell phone user is behaviorally conditioned in a potentially unhealthy way to respond to his various cell phone sounds?

Can this keep you hooked? Can being plugged-in be an addiction?

If as the study says that when a user is the type who finds it difficult to simply unable to unplug and unwind, and his grades go down, his anxiety increases, and his physical fitness wanes, perhaps the answer is “possibly.”

Try A Cell Fast?

We often recommend media and news fasts, but we also do self-imposed cell phone fasts. Most nights of the week our cell phones go off at 9:00 pm (except for my emergency line which is on a separate phone). And, on holidays and Shabbat (the Sabbath) our phones are turned off for a period of 25 hours or more (sometimes even a few days in a row.)

We’re not college students, but it’s easy to see that that being constantly at the beck and call of others, electronically or not, can be anxiety producing.

Knowing how to use technology responsibly and healthily takes some thought. I probably wouldn’t give up my mobile phones willingly—they’ve been a boon to my professional and personal life. But, I do try to unplug whenever possible.

 

 

 

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And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

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    Last reviewed: 17 Dec 2013