Cell Phone Addiction, Essay Example

Nowadays, many individuals have become more and more addicted and dependable on phones, specifically smart call phones. This often happens without these individuals realizing how the excessive and inappropriate use of their cell phones can create several of problems in their social and everyday lives. Because of this, cell phone addiction can easily be denied as an incredibly serious compulsive disorder that has been increasing with newly available technology.            As technology has progressed throughout the years, innovate phones and intriguing apps make it almost impossible and irresistible for individuals to be able to put their phones down in social settings, such as a family dinner. In fact, scientific debates have recently arisen that question whether cell phone addiction, along with gambling, should be added to the new DSM-V addiction list (Choliz, 2010, p. 373). Having said this, it is imperative to make it known that the primary purpose of this research paper cognizant of the actuality that chronic cell phone usage can indeed be a huge problem in society today. This can lead to problems inside one’s own family as well as conflicts in the workplace. The result of the excessive cell phone usage creates social, behavioral, and affective problems in the lives of future teenagers all around the world.

Something that must be openly understood is the fact that a teenager’s social experience can deeply be affected by the manner in which he or she uses his or her cell phone. For example, for a teenager to be using his or her cell phone during a party makes this certain individual unsocial. This can result in a person only having friends online as opposed to having the real thing of having personal friends to interact with on a daily basis. While this controversy might seem worrisome to many older individuals, people should realize that if a teenager is not able to have a social life, he/she might end up leading a depressed lifestyle. Also, as W.K. Park points out, loneliness is “positively associated with mobile phone addiction” which shows that addicted persons tend to reduce their feelings of loneliness by using mobile devices, such as a cell phone (2005, p. 260).

This kind of behavior would not only affect the teenager, but also the teenager’s family members. The fact of the matter is that cell phones have become so addictive nowadays that teenagers do not realize that they are addicted to their cell phones until it is too late and they have already lost the majority of their friends because of the manner in which they have shut everybody out of their lives. It goes without saying that this type of behavior should be stopped immediately because it has a huge impact on the kind of individuals that will grow up to lead the world into a better tomorrow. However, this “better tomorrow” will not be able to be made if these teenagers grow up being socially awkward.

A second aspect that must be considered when talking about cell phone addiction is the fact that, due to the fact that cell phones have so many addictive applications on them, teenagers choose to use their cell phones for extended periods of time in order to pass certain levels on a video game. While there is nothing wrong with a teenager playing a simple video game on his or her cell phone, some of these games are extremely violent for young teenagers to be playing. These violent video games are often times difficult for parents to monitor because no teenagers wishes to have his or her parents looking through his or her phone. Without parental supervision, teenagers find it much easier to download violent video games or explicit content unto their phones. This kind of behavior creates grave problems for teenagers, as they lose sense of what is real and what is portrayed in their little phone screen. In order to avoid this type of behavior altogether, it should be considered each child’s parents’ responsibility to monitor what his or her child is watching in his or her cell phone and ensure that nothing inside that cell phone could prove to be detrimental to the teenager’s behavior either at home at school.

The reason as to why a cell phone addiction might prove to be increasingly dangerous to some teenagers is because of the fact that some teenagers are not quite ready to know how to keep their social and behavioral life in shape. As a result of this, teenagers often times find it normal to spend unreasonable hours throughout their own respective day looking through their phone and talking to other individuals online. The problem that is brought forth with these kinds of actions is that it is only a matter of time until face-to-face interaction is considered taboo. When society reaches this point, it is a fair statement to say that cell phone addiction will have taken over the majority of society. In order to prevent teenagers from being prone to chronic cell phone addictions is by making sure that the teenager’s parents limit the amount of time allowed on the cell phone. Another method that could be used by parents is for them to ask their teenagers to turn in their phones by the end of the night to ensure that their children are getting their necessary sleep and are not spending all of their night on the phone instead.

The result of the excessive cell phone usage creates social, behavioral, and affective problems in the lives of future teenagers all around the world. Despite the fact that there is no definitive manner by which this addiction can be put to a stop once and for all, there are a number of alternatives that could be taken by certain parents in order to ensure that their children do not become prone to the kind of addiction that is often linked to yield unproductive teenagers who do not have much ambition in life. In today’s increasingly technological world, it is without a doubt that it would be invariably difficult to put a stop to the kind of addiction that is present in the world today. One way that would help would be for researchers to conduct more studies on cell phone addiction and related addictions through bibliographic databases that refer specifically to Internet, video games, and cell phone addiction (Carbonell, Guardiola, Beranuy, & Bellés, 2009).

References

Carbonell, X., Guardiola, E., Beranuy, M., & Bellés, A. (2009). A bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on Internet, video games, and cell phone addiction. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, (97)2, 102-107. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670219

Choliz, M. (2010). Mobile phone addiction: a point of issue. Addiction (105)2, 373-374.

Grohol, J. (n.d.). Coping with cell phone addiction. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/coping-with-cell-phone-addiction/

Hersman, D. (2015). Cell phones: A potentially deadly addiction. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-hersman/cell-phones-a-potentially_b_7161074.html

Murdock, S. (2015). Our addiction to cell phones is costing lives: Here’s how we can stop it. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/09/cell-phone-addiction- driving_n_7543464.html

Park, W. K. (2005). Mobile phone addiction. In R. Ling & P.E. Pedersen (Eds.) Mobile Communications, 253-272. London, UK: Springer.