LIFESTYLE NEWS - Ever had that moment of panic when your smartphone is down to 1% battery and you don’t have a charger?
Or how about the cold, clammy dread when you realise you’ve left your phone at home?
You might be suffering from “nomophobia”.
This “no mobile phone” phobia is an emerging term that some psychologists use to describe the fear people have of being without their smartphone.
And the latest evidence suggests that it happens because these devices have become so personalized that they are seen as extensions of ourselves.
Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong and the Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul identified a link between factors such as personal memories and users’ greater attachment to their smartphones.
This, say the researchers in their paper published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, leads to nomophobia and a tendency to keep your phone close at all times.
While previous research has linked nomophobia to anxieties around an inability to communicate and a fear of missing out, the new research suggests that phone owners also form strong personal attachments to the devices themselves, due to the photos, messages and other data that they hold.
