Phone Addiction has Gone too Far

Do you have nomophobia?

Paul+Chung+%2819%29+texts+on+his+iphone+six+during+six+period+beginning+theater+arts.+

Payton Knutson

Paul Chung (’19) texts on his iphone six during six period beginning theater arts.

If you are obsessively checking your phone or you get anxiety when you aren’t online and connected to the rest of the world, you could be suffering from nomophobia. More simply put, nomophobia is a phone and technology addiction. In America more than sixty-six percent of students have nomophobia, but couldn’t even tell you what that is. In the last ten years more than thirty-one percent of the world has started using the internet.

Senior Akaina Wenberg says, “Well I sleep for nine 9 hours, so subtract that from 24 and that’s how much time I spend on my phone.”

Cell Phones are a helpful tool in daily lives whether it be for tracking health goals, using it for an alarm or for keeping in contact with family and distant friends. Phones however, are not useful when checking Snapchat all day for people who you talk to everyday anyways.  With the snowy cold weather it’s easy to go home and curl up with your phone to scroll through Twitter for hours. The hard thing to do is get up and away from your phone and do an activity of sorts “Doing a sport would keep me off my phone because I wouldn’t actively check my phone,” said Wenberg. 

Most people are in denial that they have nomophobia, but it’s possible to change. They hate the thought of reading when in reality people read their timelines for hours. If it’s not current events then people tend to not care. Rather than sitting on the couch and reading your phone, grab a good book and start reading or go for a run. People never know what’s out there unless they give it a try. What’s your change going to be?