Doctors urge people who show signs of mobile device addiction to seek medical treatment as soon as possible, due to the possible effects it may have on others.
Chang Li-jen (張立人) of the National Taiwan University Hospital division of child psychiatry was quoted by a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper yesterday as saying that the past two years have seen a surge in cases of what some doctors describe as cellphone addiction.
Chang said that results from the first questionnaire distributed nationwide on the subject were released on Sunday. The survey was sent to 260 college students in electronics and electrical engineering, computer sciences and information technology.
Chang said most respondents said that they become nervous or ill at ease when they are unable to use their cellphones, with most saying that the first thing they did in the morning after waking up was to check their cellphones.
Some felt their social relations and time management, which are connected to school and work, were severely impacted.
Others realized they were spending more time on their handheld devices, while others felt lost when not using the handsets.
More than 50 percent of patients who visit the clinic show symptoms of cellphone addiction, Chang said, adding that most had become addicted by their own actions, while others had been influenced by their environment.
The majority of the patients are college-age, and the most recent patient who had come to see him was a young man whose girlfriend constantly sent him text messages via the popular free messaging service Line, the Apple Daily quoted Chang as saying.
The patient said that if he just read the messages and did not respond, his girlfriend would then spam him — sending more than 30 messages in less than an hour — Chang said, adding that the patient complained of intense psychological pressure.
“The patient said he tried talking to his girlfriend to no avail and he did not want to break up with her,” Apple Daily quoted Chang as saying.
Chang added that, in the end, it was the young man who had paid a visit to the clinic.
Chang added that although he had not been able to diagnose the student’s girlfriend in person, he said there was a high probability that she was addicted, as she felt anxious when seeing the “read” message over her texts, but not receiving a reply.
The cause of her behavior might be relationship insecurity, Chang said, adding that the student should seek to help his girlfriend believe that she could trust him.
“While ‘read-but-no-response’ syndrome has not yet been formalized as a sickness, it is nonetheless an indicator of cellphone addiction,” Cardinal Tien Hospital department of psychiatry physician Yang Tsung-tsair (楊聰財) said.
Yang was quoted by the Apple Daily as suggesting that “use of consumer electronics should not exceed 30 minutes per session, and the user should not remain entirely motionless to relieve the muscles of stress.”
There should be a 30-minute wait between instances of cellphone use, Yang said, adding that some should limit themselves to five minutes of use per session.
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