Is Your Smartphone Stressing You Out?
It's amazing what phones can do now. They've gone from simple things that could only make calls to things that have games, cameras, internet and can now nearly run our entire lives. I just got a smartphone for Christmas and I love it. But recent research from Health Day News says that it might be adding more stress to your life.
According to the study, the more connected you are to people, the more likely you are to try to respond to them. So the stress level increases with every little beep and ding that tells you that someone has sent you a message.
Smartphones are being used more and more to help people cope with different aspects of their life. But the more they're being used the more we're actually becoming a bit dependent upon them, and actually courting stress instead of relieving it." -- Richard Balding, a psychologist in the department of psychology at the University of Worcester, in England and the author of the study.
The biggest culprit in this study in my opinion is the desire to be socially networked with people. The authors found that originally people got the phones to make their work lives easier but soon found that they were becoming overwhelmingly engaged in their own virtual social network.
I think it's a personal thing. I refuse to be strapped to my phone. But I want to be accessible to people too. Then again, I've only had my phone for about a month. This obsession could very easily be just starting for me!
What do you think? Does your addiction to your phone cause you additional stress?