These Are The Key Reasons For Nomophobia

Nomophobia, not a name of any physical disease or disorder, is a term for "mobile phone addiction". It is the fear of not being able to use the phone or its absence for some reason. Mobile phones are a part of everyday life now, whether it's for calling and texting or playing games and using apps. App development companies have learned to utilize this perfectly as the world has gone mobile and having everything in one place within the user's handheld device is a great thing! One question still stands, though, what is so great about mobile phones and why do people spend so much time on them?

Socialising

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Before the invention of mobile phones, if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to use a landline, write to them or physically go see them. Landlines were great but rather limited in what you could do. It was a case of picking up the receiver call and that's it, there was no option to send text messages, video calls or anything like we see today.

Writing letters was just a hassle, now actually a dying form of contact. No one likes to write anymore and not to mention it would take days and sometimes weeks for the letters to be delivered. Receiving personalised handwritten letters is pretty cool but it takes too long for a letter to arrive, imagine if there was an emergency- you don’t want to wait 3 days for a letter to arrive do you?

Being social and seeing people in person is awesome, especially if it’s friends. But there are a lot of reasons as to why people wouldn’t want to go out of their way to go outside and visit someone to maybe tell them just one thing.

Today, within our little handheld devices, we have a whole social world whether it be texting, video calling, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram there are so many forms of communication it’s actually quite difficult to list them all.

We have everything we need, all in one place and it’s portable.

Gaming/Entertainment

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Do you remember a time where if you wanted to play any video games or have some entertainment you actually had to leave the house and go to an arcade, bowling alley or even the cinema? Personally, I don’t as I’m a little too young and grew up with home gaming systems! But that’s how it happened at one point in life.

Now having a mobile phone you can do all of these things from the comfort of your own home. If you want to play a game, there is an app for that! What about watch TV/Movies? There is also an app for that and here is a huge plus to that, a lot of these apps are free!

Shopping

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Why leave your home to go grocery shopping or to Ikea when you can simply download an app and shop while sitting on your sofa? Instead of having to go to the store and walk through various aisles and sections to find what you need, why not make a few taps on an app and find exactly what you want and have it delivered to your door? Social Media these days is a powerful tool that both buyers and sellers are using, thus becoming essential for the survival of e-Commerce. Mobiles conclusively become a shopping medium for users.

School Work/Business

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Remember all those textbooks and documents you had to bring home daily? Well, you can forget them!

Everything can be documented or found right on your mobile whether it be within an app or by just opening your browser. You no longer even need a PC to access any information as your little portable friend is always there to help! Some mobile phones are actually at par, sometimes even more powerful than some PCs.

Social Standpoint

At one point in time, having a mobile phone made you the coolest kid on the block. But now, when everyone has one, mobile phones do still carry some reputation. If you have the newest device on the market then you are certainly one of the cooler guys.

I personally don’t understand why mobile phones hold a social reputation but hey, maybe I am getting too old to keep up with the “youngsters”. Either way, for whatever reason, you can gain reputation within your friend's group depending on what type of phone you have.

Are There Any Downsides?

Actually, yes. Psych Guides actually wrote two very interesting articles about cell phone addiction and overuse. They stated that “Cell phones are constantly being improved by expanding upon their functionalities, which in turn increased the likelihood of overuse and addiction”.

Who would have thought that something that helped improve our daily routines and made things more convenient for us could become a problem?

So, truly why do people spend so much time on their phone?

Truly, it could be a case of cell phone addiction as many statistics in various articles show that 50% of teens alone feel they are addicted to their mobile devices among other various and worrying statistics including frequency of checking cells phones, texting while driving etc.

For others, it’s just a simple case of convenience as they enjoy having everything they need in the palm of their hand as it makes daily tasks so much simpler and easier.