The Research
For many people, a mobile phone is there when they first wake up, when they wind down for bed, and by their side for every moment in between.
As cell phone usage increases, experts in various fields from education to medicine are studying effects of possible negative effects associated with dependency on our devices. These experts say they see correlations between excessive phone use and negative emotional, mental and physical effects. What’s more, these detriments to health and functioning affect all age groups, from children, to college students, to older adults.
Dr. Holly Middleton, a child and adolescent psychology specialist, says mobile phone use could be classified as an addiction in some people.
“Addiction is anything that interferes with the function of your life,” Middleton says. “If somebody has an addiction to something and they can’t stop doing it or have to do it, it means they might do that in lieu of something that they really need to do, like doing homework or eating dinner or going to bed.”
“So is there an addiction to phones?"
"Absolutely positively," Middleton says firmly. "And that’s not just for kids, that's at every level.”
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Addiction to phones, she says, is sometimes more about what is on the phone than the device itself. Middleton says she sees negative social effects of video game addiction in her young male patients while her young female patients spend their time on social media platforms accessed via phone.
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Beyond adolescents, young adults also face negative impacts from phone usage. A 2012 study on cell phone usage and academic performance found that U.S. college students who texted, used email or browsed Facebook in class tended to have lower GPAs than counterparts who refrained from phone usage.
Dr. Thomas C. Reeves, professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Georgia, sees firsthand the negative impacts of mobile phone usage in classroom settings.
“Higher education students having tech in lecture halls with them is detrimental to their achievement,” Reeves says.
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Our team created a survey taken by over 180 college students on cell phone usage and found that over 75 percent considered themselves dependent on their cell phones. The average student respondent reported spending two and a half to three hours on their phone each week day.
Middleton says these addictions are even impacting the very way people speak to one another.
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"[Phone dependency] has cut down on the art of conversation," Middleton says. "I feel like people aren’t really learning how to talk to other people."
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Dr. Jay Erickson, a chiropractor based in Athens, Georgia says phone dependency has physical consequences, too. The hours people spend looking at handheld screens can negatively affect both spines and necks.
When asked how often he sees patients with pain related to technology use, Erickson answered, “I would say it’s a daily occurrence.”
This phenomenon is also known as “text neck,” a forward head posture named by Dr. Kenneth Hansraj in his 2014 study on mobile phone use. He found that looking forward and down for an increased amount of time increases pressure on the spine, and can include symptoms such as numbness or tingling in the fingers and headaches. Other documented symptoms associated with excessive phone use include eye strain and pain in the fingers or wrist.
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Higher levels of anxiety may also correlate with high phone usage, due to social media use and the user's fear that they will miss something.
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“I definitely see people’s anxiety levels are reduced when they are not sleeping with their phones in their room,” Middleton says. “People will say ‘it’s my alarm,’ and I get that but they make alarm clocks.”
Middleton suggests "phone holidays" where people place their phone in a bowl or separate location to give themselves a break.
“I think there’s a need for balance," Middleton says. "There’s a way we can say someone shouldn’t have a phone … it’s an important part of culture now. But like everything there’s a need for balance.”