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Cell Phone Deprivation
Not being able to be alone used to be a sign of a possible personality disorder. Today, not being able to be alone appears to be a sign of the times. How many people have you seen interminably connected via cell phone to some other similarly afflicted individual? The conversations run, mostly in my experience, from the inane to the extremely banal. "Hon, I just got on the bus. Oh, yes, we're turning onto the street now and I'll be in the terminal in just a few minutes." Is this a man who has had an awful experience that has left him with a need to be connected to someone who will comfort him or does his "hon" suffer from separation anxiety of the adult type? I don't know, but I'm beginning to wonder.
So, I think it's time to come up with a new "disorder" of sorts and I think I'll call it Cell Phone Deprivation Syndrome. Why should I wait for someone else to snatch up this catchy phrase and run with it to all the talk shows?
I wonder if the task force currently working on the latest iteration of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is considering adding some sort of new category to the Personality Disorders or to the Anxiety Disorders. It will be interesting to find out because cell phones have proliferated like those little creatures on that Star Trek series.
As I write, I've got all those nifty little motivational phrases running through my kopf. Remember sitting in school and hearing, "The early bird catches the worm," or "The race is to the swift," or "Close but no cigar." Did they really motivate you? I'm not so sure. Perhaps they were supposed to scare you into action. Maybe, but I don't think so there, either.
Maybe cell phones have somehow gotten into that little anxious area we all have and they have increased our anxiety about always being connected. Does it help? I don't think it helps any more than checking helps people who have a compulsive need to check to handle their anxiety. The ritual begins simply and grows in complexity; all in the service of handling anxiety. It doesn't, but what it does do is cause an inability to either leave the house or walk quietly down a street or go about the ordinary activities of life. Checking is always there.
To satisfy my curiosity, I did a PubMed search and found 118 entries for cell phones. What did they reveal? Mostly, they talked about exposure to radiation or the incidence of accidents while using a cell phone in the car, but there were some that actually looked at how cell phones may be involved in our lives in other ways. Some talked about the effects of cell phones on the sleep-producing substance, melatonin. Others investigated cell phone use and reproductive ability or how they might put kids at risk, but they didn't truly address the social aspects of cell phone use. The problem was, I surmise, that I was looking at the medical literature, not the social psychology literature and that's where it might be. To be continued, my friends.
Okay, I'm waiting for the studies and I'll keep looking because someone somewhere is looking for a dissertation topic and this might be it.
Related Topics: Cell Phone Safety, Confronting Your Phobias
So, I think it's time to come up with a new "disorder" of sorts and I think I'll call it Cell Phone Deprivation Syndrome. Why should I wait for someone else to snatch up this catchy phrase and run with it to all the talk shows?
I wonder if the task force currently working on the latest iteration of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is considering adding some sort of new category to the Personality Disorders or to the Anxiety Disorders. It will be interesting to find out because cell phones have proliferated like those little creatures on that Star Trek series.
As I write, I've got all those nifty little motivational phrases running through my kopf. Remember sitting in school and hearing, "The early bird catches the worm," or "The race is to the swift," or "Close but no cigar." Did they really motivate you? I'm not so sure. Perhaps they were supposed to scare you into action. Maybe, but I don't think so there, either.
Maybe cell phones have somehow gotten into that little anxious area we all have and they have increased our anxiety about always being connected. Does it help? I don't think it helps any more than checking helps people who have a compulsive need to check to handle their anxiety. The ritual begins simply and grows in complexity; all in the service of handling anxiety. It doesn't, but what it does do is cause an inability to either leave the house or walk quietly down a street or go about the ordinary activities of life. Checking is always there.
To satisfy my curiosity, I did a PubMed search and found 118 entries for cell phones. What did they reveal? Mostly, they talked about exposure to radiation or the incidence of accidents while using a cell phone in the car, but there were some that actually looked at how cell phones may be involved in our lives in other ways. Some talked about the effects of cell phones on the sleep-producing substance, melatonin. Others investigated cell phone use and reproductive ability or how they might put kids at risk, but they didn't truly address the social aspects of cell phone use. The problem was, I surmise, that I was looking at the medical literature, not the social psychology literature and that's where it might be. To be continued, my friends.
Okay, I'm waiting for the studies and I'll keep looking because someone somewhere is looking for a dissertation topic and this might be it.
Related Topics: Cell Phone Safety, Confronting Your Phobias
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