Pay attention, these are signs of phone addiction!

Read on below, what are the signs of phone addiction and how to eliminate or at least reduce this addiction!

Like the World Wide Web, smartphones are an invention that can help us tremendously, but we must know how to use it. Both here and there there are traps that slowly and unknowingly swallow us up. Life before the smartphone was completely normal, but now it seems to us that it would be impossible without a smartphone. The feeling that nowadays everything happens via the Internet and that we are a little less as part of a developed society if we don't have a smartphone, leads to its excessive use. But this is where they begin signs of phone addiction.

The telephone has become an extremely interesting device, on which we can do everything, find out everything, and through which people prefer to talk today. We've definitely become a bit too dependent on it. Speaking of addiction, this one for phones (yet) not scientifically confirmed, but it has a lot of connections with another form of addiction: gambling addiction. Likes and comments can be thought of as a kind of award, which releases the hormone of happiness in us. The more approval we receive online, the more likely it is to draw us into its virtual world.

To a large extent, this is also the responsibility of the application developers themselves, who use certain mechanics (such as the mentioned likes, comments) to attract new and new users. The users most likely to start showing signs of phone addiction are those who suffer from low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, poor self-control and they are closed in on themselves (introverted). It is not surprising that they are teenagers are among the most at risk, who often experience a milder form of similar problems due to hormonal fluctuations during puberty. Among other things, research should also show that before the child is exposed to the use of a smart device, the more likely it is, that he will become dependent on her.

Since smartphone addiction is not scientifically supported, you won't go to the doctor for a check-up. But you can help yourself with the questions you ask yourself and find out if it might be wise to put your smartphone away for a while. If you suspect that you spend too much time on your phone, ask yourself the following things:

• Do I often wake up at night to check my smartphone?
• Do I reach for my smartphone as soon as I'm alone or bored?
• Feeling anxious and irritable when I can't use my smartphone?
• Is using my smartphone causing me to procrastinate on tasks I should have done a long time ago?
• Has a smartphone ever caused my injury?
• I'm using my smartphone more and more?
• Are people around me worried about my constant smartphone use?
• I can't last long without my phone, even if I decide to use it less?
• Has my job, school, or relationship backfired because of my smartphone use?

They can be all of these signs of phone addiction. The worst thing is when because of this relationships suffer, so in the family, among friends or in a love relationship. Or when you do a traffic accident occurs due to the use of a smartphone. Second signs of phone addiction are even more so deep depression, a feeling of anxiety and sleep disorders, if we use the phone in bed. Also our concentration at work begins to fade, as we are always ready for a new announcement. People sometimes even feel the vibrations of the phone, although in reality there were none at all.

If we suspect that we are addicted to the smartphone, we can also help ourselves to a certain extent:

• We can install certain applications on our phone that will warn us or in certain cases even force us to use the phone less.
• In the settings of the most annoying applications, we can limit the sending of push notifications.
• Let's keep the phone somewhere out of sight. This will make it harder to tempt us.
• Let's have a hobby that doesn't involve using smart devices. Or simply meet up with friends.
• Let's be aware that not everything will happen overnight. Each course of weaning from something takes its own time. Let's give ourselves a chance and be persistent.

Interaction over the phone should not take precedence over genuine physical contact with a fellow human being. Nor should those few hundred or thousands of friends on a social network take precedence over the friends we meet for coffee. And yet at that time, almost all of us are fiddling with our phones. The world is becoming more and more advanced, but at the same time more and more alienated and dehumanized. Warnings about excessive use of this or that smart device may be repeated like a broken record, but that doesn't make it any less true. It's good, to trouble, if we have them, we are aware, and to try to save them.