16 Seriously Damaging Side Effects of Your Smartphone Addiction

December 1, 2015 by Jayne Leonard

Nearly two thirds of American adults now own a smartphone – up from 58% in early 2014. In fact,
61% of you reading this page right now are probably doing so on a smartphone. Their popularity is
not surprising! Smartphones are incredible little devices – they allow us to stay connected, organized
and entertained. They can track what we eat, our exercise goals and our sleep patterns. They log our
shopping lists, our travel details and our spending habits. These mini computers have eliminated our
need for alarm clocks, address books, notepads and cameras. But do their perks come with a
downside? It would seem they come with several disadvantages. Read on to find out exactly what
those are.

A Serious Addiction
Despite what some may think, smartphone addiction is a very real phenomenon. It has been found
that female college students spend an average of ten hours a day on their cell phones, surfing the
internet and sending 100+ messages. That’s more time than spent with friends. Another survey found
that three out of five US smartphone users can’t go more than 60 minutes without checking their
phones. So what makes us so eager to play with our phones instead of engaging in real life?
Experts say our brains get a hit of dopamine and serotonin – the chemicals linked to happiness –
when our phones beep or ring. These are the same chemicals that give drug users their ‘high’! We
are not oblivious to our very real problem either – a recent opinion poll shows that 82% of the
American public believe that smartphone addiction exists. In fact, nomophobia (the fear of being
without your mobile device) is now recognized as a serious issue – with rehab facilities available to
help you deal with your problem!

Withdrawal Is Painful
Just like with other addictive substances, withdrawal can be long and painful and come with
complications. A 2011 study called ‘The World Unplugged’ surveyed almost 1,000 University students
in 10 different countries. The students were asked to avoid cell phones, laptops and social networking
for 24 hours. A ‘clear majority’ suffered significant mental and physical distress, panic, confusion and
extreme isolation during the withdrawal period, with most students failing to go the full day without
their fix.

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Back Problems
Are you constantly hunched over your phone, engrossed in your Facebook feed? You could be putting
your back under pressure if you are! The British Chiropractic Association say that the number of
young people with back problems has risen dramatically over the last number of years, thanks to
smartphone use.
According to 2015 statistics, 45% of young people aged 16 to 24 now suffer from back pain as their
spinal disks are put under pressure. That’s a 60% rise from 2014! This pain isn’t just occasional either,
with 25% of those young people suffering on a daily basis.
But it’s small wonder that texting can cause such pain…a 2014 study, published in Surgical Technology
International, found that texting can add up to 50 pounds of pressure on a person’s spine, depending
on the angle at which the person is texting. That’s a similar weight to a seven year old child!

Nerve Damage
Smartphones don’t just affect your health on a day-to-day basis – they may also cause long term,
incurable side effects. Like occipital neuralgia – a neurological condition where the nerves that run
from the top of the spinal cord up through the scalp become compressed or inflamed. This condition
causes symptoms similar to those you’d experience with a severe headache or migraine. One
journalist diagnosed with the condition described it as like being ‘hit over the head with a rod of steel’
sending ‘bolts of pain’ through his skull. Unfortunately, there is no cure for occipital neuralgia – only
treatments to manage the pain which include steroid and numbing injections, yoga, massage and
laying off the smartphone usage!

Anxiety & Depression

Spending so much time staring at a screen can lead to anxiety and even depression as people expect
constant updates and interaction from friends, and worry when these aren’t received.
For every minute you’re playing Candy Crush, you’re missing out on a minute of exercise, of cooking
healthy meals, of walking the dog and of real-life human interaction – all of which are important for
good mental health.
A study from Northwestern University revealed that the more time people spend on their phones,
the more likely they are to be depressed. The average daily use for a depressed person was 68
minutes, compared to just 17 minutes for someone who has better mental health.

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Stress
Having a smartphone means we’re always ‘available’ – to take calls, text messages, instant messages,
social media notifications and emails. The workday no longer finishes at 6pm as emails continue to
push through late into the night.
But research from 2012 has found that the need to immediately read and respond to every one of
these incoming alerts is causing rising stress levels. The study, which looked at 100 university
students, retail workers and public-sector employees, found that the stress gets so bad for some,
that they actually begin to experience phantom vibrations, thinking their phone is buzzing when it
isn’t!

Weight Management & Fitness Levels

Have you ever got lost in the virtual escape your smartphone provides, only to return to reality
minutes – or even hours – later? This is precisely why we’re spending less and less time exercising –
once we’ve fit in our daily dose of phone use, there’s no time! In one study, researchers surveyed
over 300 college students about their cell phone use, leisure activities and physical activity. 49 of the
students were then asked to use a treadmill test to evaluate their heart and lung fitness.
Unsurprisingly, those who spent up to 14 hours daily on their phones were less fit than participants
who only averaged about 1.5 hours of use.

Disrupted Sleep
63% of smartphone users age 18 to 29 fall asleep with a cell phone, smartphone or tablet in their
bed, says a 2013 survey. Around 30% of users aged 30 to 64 do the same thing. What’s really worrying
is that, according to a study published in September 2015, the amount of caffeine in a double
espresso has less of an effect on sleep schedule than bright light exposure at night! While most of us
wouldn’t bring a double espresso to bed, we happily bring our phones. The light exposure can actually
push back sleep time twice as long as coffee does, thanks to its ability to suppress melatonin, the
hormone that helps with sleep timing.
When Harvard researchers looked at the effect of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light, and to green
light, they found that the blue light suppressed melatonin for twice as long as the green did. The blue
also shifted sleep schedules by three hours, compared to an hour and a half for the green light.

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A Source of Bacteria
Disturbing research from the University of Arizona has discovered that the average phone has 10
times the amount of bacteria that is found on a toilet seat! While you might clean your toilet
regularly, it’s likely your phone is given a good wipe down far less often. And no matter how clean
your toilet seat, you’re probably not going to let it touch your face! Next time, be careful where you
leave your phone, and wipe it regularly.

Attention Span
It turns out that most of us now have an attention span less than that of a goldfish. Could our
smartphone addiction be at fault? That’s exactly what research from Microsoft claims. It’s not
surprising really, especially when you consider that most of our news is now condensed into 140
characters or less. On the upside, the researchers claim that cell phones have increased our ability to
multitask. But, others studies contest this, stating that simply talking or texting can be distracting and
contributes to diminished performance when multitasking. In fact, simply the presence of a cell
phone is said to be distracting, especially when in social settings.

Social Effects
Instead of making us more connected, our smartphones could be making us more isolated. Not only
are we more distracted and less ‘present’ in social scenarios thanks to our cell phones, we’re also
becoming less connected to our peers on a deeper level. Researchers from the University of Essex
found that people who discussed personally meaningful topics when a cell phone was nearby (even
if they weren’t being used) reported lower relationship quality and less trust in their partner. They
also felt their partner was less empathic to their concerns.
Smartphone use is also likely to make us more selfish, and less likely to engage in ‘pro-social’
behaviour, says University of Maryland research. Pro-social behaviour is defined as an action
intended to benefit another person or society as a whole – like volunteering or simply helping out
someone in need.

Text Claw
Text claw isn’t a medical term (yet) but its symptoms are very real. Sufferers experience cramped
fingers, wrist pain and muscle pain thanks to continuous texting and scrolling on the touchscreen of
a smartphone. This occurs because of inflammation in the tendons. It can also exacerbate existing

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inflammation from tendinitis. If it happens to you, take a break from the cell phone, ice the area
regularly, try some wrist exercises and flavour your food with these pain-killing herbs and spices,
many of which will work to reduce the inflammation.

Indirect Injuries
Aside from the injuries directly caused by your phone – like occipital neuralgia or carpal tunnel
syndrome – a cell phone addiction can increase your risk of indirect injuries, like from a nasty fall or
car crash! While hand-held cell phone use while driving is banned in some states, hands-free isn’t.
Yet Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that drivers who are listening to someone talk on
their phone have 37% reduced brain activity. They say that making devices hands-free or voice-
activated is not sufficient to eliminate distractions while driving. Even pedestrians are at increased
risk of causing accidents. A University of Washington study reports that texting pedestrians took 1.87
extra seconds to cross an average intersection and were four times more likely to ignore the lights or
forget to look for traffic before crossing. Scary stuff!

Eyesight
Direct exposure to blue light – like the one that comes from cell phone screens – can cause damage
to the retina of the eye. The American Macular Degeneration Foundation warns that retinal damage
of this nature may lead to macular degeneration, which causes the loss of central vision (the ability
to see what’s in front of you). In the research however, the blue light was placed directly in front of
the eye – which isn’t exactly how cell phones are used. However, long term effects of blue light
exposure are not known.
One survey of 2,000 people found that 55% of respondents believe that eye discomfort is the main
problem inflicted on them by their phones. To save your eyes, limit the amount of time on your phone
and follow the 20-20-20 rule – every 20 minutes take 20 seconds to focus on something 20 feet away.
Check out these vision-saving foods too!

Hearing
Simply chatting to someone on the phone won’t damage your hearing, but if you use your
smartphone and headphones for listening to music then you might have cause for concern. According
to the National Institute on Deafness, around 26 million Americans suffer from noise-induced hearing
loss.

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One source of such noise is from headphones, like the ones that come with your phone. If we listen
to music that is too loud, we can damage the tiny hairs in the inner ear, which transmit chemical
signals through nerves to the brain. What level is too loud?
The Dangerous Decibels public health campaign states that repeated exposure to noises above 85
decibels can cause hearing loss – approximately the noise level of heavy traffic. The maximum volume
of a smartphone is around 105 decibels – or that of a concert. Listening to music at this volume for
more than four minutes would likely result in damage to hearing. Even if you lower it to just 94
decibels, you can cause damage if you listen for over an hour.

Radiation
While it’s not clear if the radiation from cell phones and other connected devices causes health
issues, a group of 200 biological and health scientists from around the world are trying to raise public
awareness on this issue. They are calling on the United Nations, World Health Organization and
national governments to develop strict regulations concerning cell phones that create
electromagnetic fields.
The World Health Organization already classes cell phones as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ and
the organization will conduct a formal risk assessment of all studied health outcomes from radio-
frequency field exposure by 2016.

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 Read the text: 16 Seriously Damaging Side Effects Of Your Smartphone Addiction and do the
following tasks:

1. Select a long, complicated sentence and rewrite it in your own words (paraphrasing).
Have you ever got lost in the virtual escape your smartphone provides, only to return to reality
minutes – or even hours – later? This is precisely why we’re spending less and less time
exercising – once we’ve fit in our daily dose of phone use, there’s no time!

Worst case of getting lost when facing our smartphone screen in almost whole day, is
inability to turn back to reality which also letting our body weaker & weaker because no time
of exercise

2. Select one sentence that you think is the most important in the reading; and tell why it is so.

To save your eyes, limit the amount of time on your phone and follow the 20-20-20 rule – every
20 minutes take 20 seconds to focus on something 20 feet away. Check out these vision-saving
foods too!

The disadvantage of having dependency on Smartphone was like a common thing that
people already realize long time back. The thing is that it seems impossible for people to
put out Smartphone from the life. While all of the issues that aforementioned were very
important as wakeup call for all smartphone freaks.
Which the main case that offered by highlighted above tips sentence is a little action on
what people can do to at least organize their habit on using smartphone.

3. Identify the main question at issue (or problem) raised in the reading

But do their perks come with a downside? It would seem they come with several
disadvantages.

Main issue that brought up into the reading was do people really understand the downside
on becoming smartphone addiction?

4. State the reason (the WHY) the reading text was written.

The rapid penetration of Smartphone usage in the world was very amazing. Moreover, the
fact on how Smartphone change the society habit incredibly. The impact was not only on
how the way of communication & relation is changing but also revealing the impact to live
& health is becoming the important part on the reading.

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5. Who is or are the targeted reader(s) of the text?

All the smartphone user with high dose of daily usage.

6. What is your own personal response to the issue raised by the author?

The writer was smartly composed the reading in a good flow. Starting with the acceptance on
how great is Smartphone for the user life. Then triggering the reader to start realizing on the bad
impact of using Smartphone with no dosage. Sorting the disadvantage item, also be critical part
to help audience well understand, starting by the common impact of communication & society
then go to the heath problem.

The only thing left to make the reading is completely beneficial is completing the article with the
stimulus on how to build good manners on using smartphone.

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