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Perhaps I just don’t have smartphone addiction, but (if I do) there is something different between this “addiction” and others. There are no withdrawal symptoms

Perhaps I just don’t have smartphone addiction, but (if I do) there is something different between this “addiction” and others. There are no withdrawal symptoms for me. I feel the compulsion to pick it up and look at it, but if I don’t have my phone, after reaching for it in my pocket and not finding it a few times I just stop. I don’t feel a need to go find a phone or feel rotten because I don’t have one. And these feelings (that I don’t seem to have anyway) don’t get stronger and stronger until I get back to my phone. I’ve felt withdrawal symptoms for caffeine, and I can only imagine it is worse for stronger drugs. Maybe this addiction is of the same sort but the withdrawal is so slight that I don’t notice?

wlesieutre 8y ago
You're right, I don't think it's as physically addictive as chemical compounds can be. But the time wasting is a very easy hole for me to fall into (he said, arguing with people in HN comments :P). It's not the end of the world, if I end up having problems with it on my next bigger phone I'm more than capable of deleting the problematic apps. I've already done that with Facebook on my SE. Even so, I'm also not excited about the ever climbing costs for new "upgrades" that I don't want. SE was a great size and had the top of the line camera from the 6s. Now if I want the smallest screen and the best camera, the price went from $400 to $1000. Welp.
maemilius 8y ago
I'm in the same boat as you. One thing I've learned over the last few years is that the problem with "phone addition" has more to do with the lack of boredom than any physical effects. The really short version is that there's some science that suggests that periods of boredom increase creativity. By constantly keeping active with your phone, we're losing this "boredom time". Personally, I've made a habit of occasionally just doing nothing every now and then. Put the phone away; don't listen to anything. It's actually great for my commute home (I take a bus). I can just sit/stand and not do anything and just relax for a few minutes on the way home. Personally, I think the biggest problem here isn't that kids are spending a lot of time looking at their screens. It's that parents _aren't_ spending a lot of time engaging with their kids about the content. When a screen is used to distract a child - or anyone,really - instead of engage them, that's where the problem arises.
- rleigh 8y ago
  I often wonder how much creativity, thought and self-reflection is missed out on because the response to boredom or quiet moments is to reach for the phone, rather than engaging the brain and being alone with one's thoughts for a time. Not only personal time, but work time as well. How many of us see work colleagues on their phones or random websites during work time? If that moment of boredom had been spent thinking about new products, the details of a customer problem, or something else work-related, that could have produced something tangible, rather than being wasted. When "slack time" is automatically used for indulging in phone apps or web surfing, that's displacing activity which pre-phone-apps and pre-internet, would be much more likely to have involved alternative productive activity, from future planning to work-related talk with co-workers, to designing and prototyping experimental stuff. Now it's self-indulgent skinner boxes compelling us to fairly fruitless time wasting. Some people are so focussed on this stuff that it takes priority over actual face to face conversations, which I personally find intensely rude, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying this is going to directly affect the productivity and effectiveness of them as an individual and the team as a whole. Their focus isn't on the company's business, but on themselves. I don't find this degree of self-absorption healthy; it's like working with zombies. In some ways, I preferred my original programming job where we only had a shelf full of books and dial-up internet, and you actually worked with your co-workers, talked to your customers on the phone, rather than merely existing in the same space while their minds are somewhere else. Not that I'm a Luddite, it's the social changes I abhor, not the technical. It's weird, and worrying, just how addicted people have become at the expense of real life in the here and now, and a pushback against it is long overdue.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    There's also a chance that the distraction is dissipating energy spent in particularly unhelpful endeavors. If that's true, who knows what the ratio between helpful and unhelpful boredom is?
undersuit 8y ago
The withdrawal symptoms are subtle but can be extreme. Think of a stereotypical teenage girl whose phone has been taken by her parents, she's lost her world and she's going to have a full on panic attack. That's a whole lot different than "oh no I left my phone at home, I guess I won't have access to it until I decide to go home.", but look at how much choice you have over your addiction compared to the teenagers.

wlesieutre 8y ago

You're right, I don't think it's as physically addictive as chemical compounds can be. But the time wasting is a very easy hole for me to fall into (he said, arguing with people in HN comments :P). It's not the end of the world, if I end up having problems with it on my next bigger phone I'm more than capable of deleting the problematic apps. I've already done that with Facebook on my SE. Even so, I'm also not excited about the ever climbing costs for new "upgrades" that I don't want. SE was a great size and had the top of the line camera from the 6s. Now if I want the smallest screen and the best camera, the price went from $400 to $1000. Welp.

maemilius 8y ago

I'm in the same boat as you. One thing I've learned over the last few years is that the problem with "phone addition" has more to do with the lack of boredom than any physical effects. The really short version is that there's some science that suggests that periods of boredom increase creativity. By constantly keeping active with your phone, we're losing this "boredom time". Personally, I've made a habit of occasionally just doing nothing every now and then. Put the phone away; don't listen to anything. It's actually great for my commute home (I take a bus). I can just sit/stand and not do anything and just relax for a few minutes on the way home. Personally, I think the biggest problem here isn't that kids are spending a lot of time looking at their screens. It's that parents _aren't_ spending a lot of time engaging with their kids about the content. When a screen is used to distract a child - or anyone,really - instead of engage them, that's where the problem arises.

rleigh 8y ago
I often wonder how much creativity, thought and self-reflection is missed out on because the response to boredom or quiet moments is to reach for the phone, rather than engaging the brain and being alone with one's thoughts for a time. Not only personal time, but work time as well. How many of us see work colleagues on their phones or random websites during work time? If that moment of boredom had been spent thinking about new products, the details of a customer problem, or something else work-related, that could have produced something tangible, rather than being wasted. When "slack time" is automatically used for indulging in phone apps or web surfing, that's displacing activity which pre-phone-apps and pre-internet, would be much more likely to have involved alternative productive activity, from future planning to work-related talk with co-workers, to designing and prototyping experimental stuff. Now it's self-indulgent skinner boxes compelling us to fairly fruitless time wasting. Some people are so focussed on this stuff that it takes priority over actual face to face conversations, which I personally find intensely rude, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying this is going to directly affect the productivity and effectiveness of them as an individual and the team as a whole. Their focus isn't on the company's business, but on themselves. I don't find this degree of self-absorption healthy; it's like working with zombies. In some ways, I preferred my original programming job where we only had a shelf full of books and dial-up internet, and you actually worked with your co-workers, talked to your customers on the phone, rather than merely existing in the same space while their minds are somewhere else. Not that I'm a Luddite, it's the social changes I abhor, not the technical. It's weird, and worrying, just how addicted people have become at the expense of real life in the here and now, and a pushback against it is long overdue.
- dwighttk 8y ago
  There's also a chance that the distraction is dissipating energy spent in particularly unhelpful endeavors. If that's true, who knows what the ratio between helpful and unhelpful boredom is?

undersuit 8y ago

The withdrawal symptoms are subtle but can be extreme. Think of a stereotypical teenage girl whose phone has been taken by her parents, she's lost her world and she's going to have a full on panic attack. That's a whole lot different than "oh no I left my phone at home, I guess I won't have access to it until I decide to go home.", but look at how much choice you have over your addiction compared to the teenagers.