MUMBAI - 'Nomophobia', or severe anxiety and panic attacks over losing access to a cell phone, is the new evolutionary twist to the gadget Alexander Graham Bell engineered. The missing ring tone is causing psychological disorders in India, say medical researchers.
"Our ongoing research found 45% of the study population nomophobic," says Dr Sanjay Dixit, professor and head of the Community Medicine Department at the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College in the central Indian city of Indore. "This is in the age group of 18 to 30 years, in urban areas, using mobile phones for over three hours a day. Our original study in 2009 medical college students had 20% of the study population being nomophobic."
The first of its kind study that the Indian Journal of Community Medicine published in 2009 is being updated, with news that the cell phone addiction levels are getting worse. The original study involved cell phone users between 17-28 years, and the higher percentage of addicts was among 20-22 years.
"73% of students keep their mobile phone with them even when they go to sleep - the cell phone is with them for 24 hours a day," said the report. "Since millions of subscribers are being added every month, full-blown nomophobia has all possibilities to reach the epidemic scale, leading to serious psychiatric and psychological problems among users."
The warning is not far-fetched, given the general cell phone-dependency among even children. Zoya, a school-going daughter of a friend in Kolkata, sends and receives text messages at 2.00 am. She would have contributed healthily to the eight trillion text messages estimated to have been exchanged worldwide in 2011. "There is definitely a rise in nomophobia among the general population," Dr Dixit said in an e-mail to Asia Times Online, about his updated research.
Asia would be guaranteed world leader status in nomophobia cases, with India, China, Indonesia, Japan and Pakistan featuring in the list of top ten mobile phone using countries worldwide. India, after China, is the world's second-largest mobile-phone using nation, with 884 million cell phone connections. China has 963 million potential nomophobics. China and India account for more than 30% of global cell phone usage.
Dr Dixit, Harish Shukla and their colleagues in their updated study found 12% of respondents said they cannot live without their mobile phone. The most affected age group found was between 20-28 years.
This generation in their twenties may have not even seen the telephone of my school days in the 1970s and 1980s, a sturdy iron-box sized object with the forefinger used to dial a numbered circular disc that made a whir while connecting to the world. It's a bit difficult to imagine folks lugging this bread toaster-sized apparatus with them all day along as they do with cell phones, including during the morning walk at 6.30 am a long the Marine Drive promenade in Mumbai.
Nomphobia is dangerous in other ways. Dr Dixit, who did his post graduate studies in health system management in the US, found 25% of the nomophobia-afflicted suffered mishaps while messaging or talking on the phone. This included minor road accidents, falling while going upstairs or downstairs and stumbling while walking. More than 20% also reported pain in the thumbs due to excessive texting.
Dr Dixit offers three questions for readers to check if one is charging towards nomophobia: "a) Do you feel throughout the day that your mobile phone is ringing (the category called 'Ringers'); b) Do you check again and again for your mobile phone in your pockets ('Checkers'); c) Do you get restless/disturbed if you get a mobile phone call while preoccupied some important work, or get restless if you have missed calls or someone does not pick up your calls ringing, or get restless if battery goes down?"
At least this chronicler of the phenomenon is reasonably sure of getting nowhere near acquiring membership to Club Nomophobia. I am quite happy being among the last of the Asia's journalists, if not the last, to have never owned a cell phone, and who never intend to do so. There are 200 million Indians who don't own mobile phones, according to the Registrar General of India, reporting in the first phase of Census 2011 released on March 13.
I am a contented member of this tribe. The cell phone, I am convinced in my case, deserves top-ranking among possessions that soon possess the possessor, a Trojan Horse of modern day life. Anything that induces unnecessary conversation is bound to bring trouble. As it is, 99.94% of the woes of life are probably due to talking too much. And with 87% of the world's population already cell-phone users, according to the Switzerland-based International Telecommunications Union, that risks trouble.
With cell phones, I find total abstinence and "cell-ibacy" easier than rationing cell phone use. I am sure about not surrendering my joyous "celli-bate" status, not even if Nokia offers its diamond-encrusted Nokia Supreme for US$1, payable in installments, and sends Scarlett O' Hara to make the sales presentation.
Mobile temptations and nomophobia was more or less inevitable given how no gadget in human history, of this hand-held size, has evolved from a single purpose to so many uses.
The Indian Railways, for instance, this March even converted the cell phone into a valid train ticket. Just show the ticket collector the short message text of the electronic ticket confirmation. You can even now use the cell phone to book in advance meal preferences such as a for diabetics on select Indian trains.
Medical treatment too can now be administered directly through the cell phone and the Internet. A Bluetooth protocol is being used to deliver a very high radio frequency to heal a patient, through an evolving generic and real-time Internet telemedicine aid system.
Martin Cooper, credited with developing the first commercial cell phone in 1983 , might be astonished at how his invention is used less than three decades later: as alarm clock, radio, music player, torch light, camera; to shop, buy travel tickets, or read news; for video conferencing and accessing social media networks; to e-mail, watch live TV, make video clips, play games, do online banking; as a map for finding places, for accessing financial services ... And so the list goes on. More than 300,000 mobile phone applications were developed in just the past three years.
Quite likely cell phone inventors are working on a prototype of a mobile phone that can cook rice and make peanut butter. Not surprisingly, more people, in fact, are using mobile phones for everything except barely make phone calls, says a New York Times report.
Fascinating statistics from Ireland-based MobiThinking show that the cell phone is increasingly the single major device owned in Asia and Africa, where personal computers are less prevalent than elsewhere.
Website visitor tracker and analyst StatCounter says nearly 8.5% of website hits and page views in January 2012 came from a handheld mobile device. Over 1.2 billion people use the mobile phone to access the Internet, and the majority of them are Asians. China has nearly 300 million people using cell phones to access the Internet, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. South Korea (91%) and Japan (88%) dominate mobile broadband penetration worldwide.
Nomophobia may be prevalent, but is not yet a certified phobia, says Dr Dixit. It is not yet included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, the definitive reference for mental health professionals. But his ongoing research is heading towards confirming India is doing its best to see cell-phone related mental disorders are not left out of the DSM for too long.
Everything said above doesnt just relate to India - i think this is a universal phenomena.
Asia Times Online :: 'Nomophobia' strikes Indian phone addicts
"Our ongoing research found 45% of the study population nomophobic," says Dr Sanjay Dixit, professor and head of the Community Medicine Department at the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College in the central Indian city of Indore. "This is in the age group of 18 to 30 years, in urban areas, using mobile phones for over three hours a day. Our original study in 2009 medical college students had 20% of the study population being nomophobic."
The first of its kind study that the Indian Journal of Community Medicine published in 2009 is being updated, with news that the cell phone addiction levels are getting worse. The original study involved cell phone users between 17-28 years, and the higher percentage of addicts was among 20-22 years.
"73% of students keep their mobile phone with them even when they go to sleep - the cell phone is with them for 24 hours a day," said the report. "Since millions of subscribers are being added every month, full-blown nomophobia has all possibilities to reach the epidemic scale, leading to serious psychiatric and psychological problems among users."
The warning is not far-fetched, given the general cell phone-dependency among even children. Zoya, a school-going daughter of a friend in Kolkata, sends and receives text messages at 2.00 am. She would have contributed healthily to the eight trillion text messages estimated to have been exchanged worldwide in 2011. "There is definitely a rise in nomophobia among the general population," Dr Dixit said in an e-mail to Asia Times Online, about his updated research.
Asia would be guaranteed world leader status in nomophobia cases, with India, China, Indonesia, Japan and Pakistan featuring in the list of top ten mobile phone using countries worldwide. India, after China, is the world's second-largest mobile-phone using nation, with 884 million cell phone connections. China has 963 million potential nomophobics. China and India account for more than 30% of global cell phone usage.
Dr Dixit, Harish Shukla and their colleagues in their updated study found 12% of respondents said they cannot live without their mobile phone. The most affected age group found was between 20-28 years.
This generation in their twenties may have not even seen the telephone of my school days in the 1970s and 1980s, a sturdy iron-box sized object with the forefinger used to dial a numbered circular disc that made a whir while connecting to the world. It's a bit difficult to imagine folks lugging this bread toaster-sized apparatus with them all day along as they do with cell phones, including during the morning walk at 6.30 am a long the Marine Drive promenade in Mumbai.
Nomphobia is dangerous in other ways. Dr Dixit, who did his post graduate studies in health system management in the US, found 25% of the nomophobia-afflicted suffered mishaps while messaging or talking on the phone. This included minor road accidents, falling while going upstairs or downstairs and stumbling while walking. More than 20% also reported pain in the thumbs due to excessive texting.
Dr Dixit offers three questions for readers to check if one is charging towards nomophobia: "a) Do you feel throughout the day that your mobile phone is ringing (the category called 'Ringers'); b) Do you check again and again for your mobile phone in your pockets ('Checkers'); c) Do you get restless/disturbed if you get a mobile phone call while preoccupied some important work, or get restless if you have missed calls or someone does not pick up your calls ringing, or get restless if battery goes down?"
At least this chronicler of the phenomenon is reasonably sure of getting nowhere near acquiring membership to Club Nomophobia. I am quite happy being among the last of the Asia's journalists, if not the last, to have never owned a cell phone, and who never intend to do so. There are 200 million Indians who don't own mobile phones, according to the Registrar General of India, reporting in the first phase of Census 2011 released on March 13.
I am a contented member of this tribe. The cell phone, I am convinced in my case, deserves top-ranking among possessions that soon possess the possessor, a Trojan Horse of modern day life. Anything that induces unnecessary conversation is bound to bring trouble. As it is, 99.94% of the woes of life are probably due to talking too much. And with 87% of the world's population already cell-phone users, according to the Switzerland-based International Telecommunications Union, that risks trouble.
With cell phones, I find total abstinence and "cell-ibacy" easier than rationing cell phone use. I am sure about not surrendering my joyous "celli-bate" status, not even if Nokia offers its diamond-encrusted Nokia Supreme for US$1, payable in installments, and sends Scarlett O' Hara to make the sales presentation.
Mobile temptations and nomophobia was more or less inevitable given how no gadget in human history, of this hand-held size, has evolved from a single purpose to so many uses.
The Indian Railways, for instance, this March even converted the cell phone into a valid train ticket. Just show the ticket collector the short message text of the electronic ticket confirmation. You can even now use the cell phone to book in advance meal preferences such as a for diabetics on select Indian trains.
Medical treatment too can now be administered directly through the cell phone and the Internet. A Bluetooth protocol is being used to deliver a very high radio frequency to heal a patient, through an evolving generic and real-time Internet telemedicine aid system.
Martin Cooper, credited with developing the first commercial cell phone in 1983 , might be astonished at how his invention is used less than three decades later: as alarm clock, radio, music player, torch light, camera; to shop, buy travel tickets, or read news; for video conferencing and accessing social media networks; to e-mail, watch live TV, make video clips, play games, do online banking; as a map for finding places, for accessing financial services ... And so the list goes on. More than 300,000 mobile phone applications were developed in just the past three years.
Quite likely cell phone inventors are working on a prototype of a mobile phone that can cook rice and make peanut butter. Not surprisingly, more people, in fact, are using mobile phones for everything except barely make phone calls, says a New York Times report.
Fascinating statistics from Ireland-based MobiThinking show that the cell phone is increasingly the single major device owned in Asia and Africa, where personal computers are less prevalent than elsewhere.
Website visitor tracker and analyst StatCounter says nearly 8.5% of website hits and page views in January 2012 came from a handheld mobile device. Over 1.2 billion people use the mobile phone to access the Internet, and the majority of them are Asians. China has nearly 300 million people using cell phones to access the Internet, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. South Korea (91%) and Japan (88%) dominate mobile broadband penetration worldwide.
Nomophobia may be prevalent, but is not yet a certified phobia, says Dr Dixit. It is not yet included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, the definitive reference for mental health professionals. But his ongoing research is heading towards confirming India is doing its best to see cell-phone related mental disorders are not left out of the DSM for too long.
Everything said above doesnt just relate to India - i think this is a universal phenomena.
Asia Times Online :: 'Nomophobia' strikes Indian phone addicts
