Research Finds People Who Are Always On Their Phones Could Be Depressed
People who check their phones every other minute may be more grouchy and unstable.
That's the conclusion of a study about phone addiction conducted at Texas' Baylor University.
To complete the study, researchers enlisted 346 men and women between the ages of 19 and 24, according to Daily Mail.
Participants completed a questionnaire to determine their personality type as well as their relationship with their mobile phones.
Those who had trouble focusing and keeping their emotions in check were also the most obsessed with their devices.
Exhibiting the least mobile dependency were the more reserved and introverted participants.
Researchers wrote in the study,
Those who express feelings of shyness and bashfulness may be less likely to become dependent on their cell phones than their more extroverted counterparts.
The team deduced that insecure people constantly look at their phones to shield themselves from the never-ending pressures at hand.
They wrote,
Much like a variety of substance addictions, cell phone addiction may be an attempt at mood repair. Incessant checking of emails, sending texts, tweeting, and surfing the web may act as pacifiers for the unstable individual distracting him or herself from the worries of the day and providing solace, albeit temporarily, from such concerns.
But as another study conducted at Baylor last year found, those who don't check their phones often may be an extreme minority.
The average student dedicated 95 minutes of his or her day to texting, and 60 percent of students became anxious when they were separated from their phones.
Participants also spent 49 minutes a day on mobile email and another 39 minutes using their phones to check Facebook.
Some students texted and went on social media enough to amount to 10 hours of mobile activity a day.
The second study was originally published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Citations: Constantly checking your mobile (Daily Mail)
