In the highly technological world that we are living in, undoubtedly it had cut the world short but that smartphone to which we are highly getting dependent on, studies revels that it is giving us some real serious mental health woes.
KRC TIMES Desk
Problematic smartphone use has linked to mental health woes. People who are never far from their cell phones, new research conducted on college students found that “problematic” use is tied to a variety of mental health problems, as well as lower grades and more sexual partners.
The study, which surveyed more than 3,400 students in the United States, also found that alcohol misuse was markedly higher in those with problematic smartphone use, in comparison to others.
One in 5 survey respondents reported problematic smartphone use, defined by characteristics such as excessive use, problems in concentrating, fretting while not having a smartphone, and personal disruptions such as physical symptoms and mood and sleep impairments.
Dr. Jon Grant who is the professor of psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine said, that he wasn’t at all surprised to find the high percentage of young people who had problematic use of phones. He says to have seen that more and more through times. It is quite evident when literally one can’t drive down the street without hitting someone using their phone. But the amount of overall impulsive and unhealthy behaviours associated with problematic smartphone use is what have surprised him the utmost.
Continuing their widespread popularity, smartphones that allow users to call, text, email, play games, engage in social media and access information had more than 1 billion users. Estimates now suggest that there are more than 2.7 billion smartphone users worldwide.
But prior research has already indicated smartphone use has health-related downsides. Excessive use has been tied to anxiety, depression, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
The latest experiment have been conducted upon 3,425 students at a large university in the Midwest. Participants filled out a 156-question survey relating to smartphone use along with measures of alcohol and drug use, depressive symptoms, anxiety, ADHD, self-esteem, impulse control, and body perception.
Just over 20 percent reported current problematic smartphone use, with nearly two-thirds of these students being women and generally earning lower grade-point averages in school. Additionally, while those with problematic smartphone use were slightly less sexually active than their peers overall, they were more likely to report having two or more sexual partners in the past 12 months and twice as likely to have had six or more sexual partners in that time.
Alcohol misuse was reported in more than 33 percent of problematic smartphone users compared to 22.5 percent of other smartphone users, but not misuse of other substances. Problematic smartphone use was also linked to lower self-esteem, depression, ADHD and anxiety.
The cross-sectional study doesn’t, however, prove that problematic smartphone use causes these problems, but that an association does co-exist.
Dr. Vishesh Agarwal who is an addiction psychiatrist at Christiana Care Health System in Delaware. He says that there has already been an association consistently proven. What is unknown is whether problematic smartphone use leads to these diagnoses or not.
It is hard to say which came first — whether people with these mental health diagnoses use smartphones in a problematic manner, or whether people using smartphones in a problematic manner leads to these diagnoses.
The studies pointed out that gambling is currently the only non-substance addiction disorder listed in the DSM-5, the diagnostic book of mental health disorders relied upon by doctors and other clinicians. There seems to be a “significant overlap” in the ways gambling and excessive smartphone use activate the reward centres of the brain. While there is no established medical protocol to identify or treat smartphone addiction, specialists have found counseling may help those for whom it is becoming problematic to the point where it is interfering with their social and occupational well-being.
How can one identify having a smartphone problem? While many people spend far more time on their phones than is necessary, a useful sign is if others object to the amount that one is consuming. But what is easy in theory seems hard in practice, that is to go without a smartphone.
There are people these days who are spending evenings or weekends without their smartphones. Putting them in a drawer and going out is what is recommended these days. Doing this reminds us that one doesn’t necessarily need it. We lie to ourselves that we do, but people have lived for decades without smartphones and have had a fulfilled life.
