Are you addicted to your cell phone?

I came across an interesting article today...one that made me realize I may very well be addicted to my cell phone. Click here for the full article, see below for some highlights.

* Some have even called cell phones "the new cigarettes," seeing as how people fiddle with them in elevators, whip them out as soon as they leave the office, take "cell phone breaks" on the job and chat away while walking, driving, etc.

* And when your phone isn't ringing, your brain sometimes tricks you into thinking that it is — a phenomenon that has been dubbed "phantom ringing."

* In 2003, information-science professor Sergio Chaparro wanted to test out just how deeply cell phones had insinuated themselves into the lives of his students at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

He gave them a seemingly simple homework assignment: to off their cell phones for 72 hours. Of 220 students with cell phones, only three could bring themselves to complete the assignment.
“They were afraid. They were truly afraid,” said Chaparro, now a professor at the Simmons Graduate School for Library and Information Science, in Boston.

“What I found was basically a high level of dependence on cell phones. Most students were particularly, I would say, scared of the experience.”

As part of the experiment, the students were required to keep logs of their thoughts and feelings while going without their mobile phones. The responses were telling, he said.

“They had high levels of anxiety, high levels of stress, high levels of insecurity,” he said. “Some of them also told me personal stories. One student told me that the year before she went on a spring-break trip for a week, and the minute she got on the plane, she realized she had forgotten her cell phone. So her mom had to FedEx her the cell phone because she couldn't be without her cell phone for a few days. She was afraid of even driving without her cell phone.”

* “The symptoms are similar to the symptoms we see with other types of addictions,” she wrote in an e-mail. “The following are some common symptoms:
- The person feels uncomfortable when not using a cell phone;
- Their cell-phone use has increased significantly;
- Their need to talk on the phone is insatiable;
- Their cell-phone bill is causing financial distress;
- They are having problems at school and work because they are constantly using their cell phone;
- They are having interpersonal problems because they are constantly using their cell phone; - They are endangering their health because they use their cell phone during inappropriate times (driving, etc.).”