Don’t laugh. You probably do. Nomophobia, you see, is shorthand for ‘no-mobile-phone phobia’ — which is a fancy way of saying separation anxiety. 
Yeah, not so funny now, is it? 66% of you all have it — that’s two-thirds if you’re keeping score, a pretty lopsided majority. Now, way back when nomophobia was first identified in 2008, only 53% of us were afflicted. These days, it’s the most widespread phobia in the world, practically epidemic.
We’re hopelessly besotted with our smartphones. We check them upwards of 34 times a day. So ubiquitous are these things, they’ve quietly replaced the wristwatch as the timepiece of choice. We’d rather gaze into the glare of a 4-inch screen than look upon a beautifully crafted work of art. What does that say about us? Nothing good, I’m afraid.
Cheer up, though, there are worse things. And all of them emanate from our deep and abiding love for technology. Ever hear of scrotal hyperthermia? No? That’s what you get when a laptop is, literally, atop a lap. The temperature in said region shoots up as much as 6º in an hour and sperm production halts.
How about erythema ab igne? Maybe you know it as toasted-skin syndrome or laptop thigh, it’s the lacy discoloration of skin caused by excessive heat. The main culprits used to be heating pads and hot water bottles, things we now consider quaint. Remember them? Now, we’re more likely to sit with a laptop on our sore backs.
And you’re familiar with texting thumb, aren’t you? Sure you are, that’s when you work the poor thing to death with your constant texting and emails. But my favorite new ailment is phantom vibration syndrome. It has us believing the phone’s ringing (or vibrating) when it’s not. Yes, boys and girls, we’re starting to hallucinate.
Surprisingly, I don’t suffer from any of those; I suffer from iPosture. Or cervicalgia. Oh, why mince words; it’s a hunchback. We get it from slumping over computers and cell phones. Recent evidence also suggests such poor posture contributes to making us dumber, as well. Who cares, right? We look like Quasimodo — brains won’t help.
Here’s the kicker: I read where many people consider their phones the modern equivalent of the newspaper. You know why? Because they take it to the john with them. That’s gross. Come on, get away from the smartphone. You don’t know where that thing’s been. Ew.
Copyright © 2014 Publikworks
the whirly girl 
19 responses to “: got nomophobia? :”
One phone for me. Yes, it is a Smart Phone. I hate talking on the phone so I seldom do. I use mine, like you said, as a watch, as a camera, as a timer but seldom as a phone. I tend to leave it in the last corner I was in and I have no separation anxiety about at all. Don’t ask the people who are trying to reach me how they feel about me never having my phone with me. It won’t be pretty.
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Like you, I don’t often use mine as a phone. As a result, I’ve accumulated thousands of rollover minutes, but always exceed my data plan. By a lot. I’ll need to start leaving it behind more often.
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I don’t have a cell phone, smart or otherwise.
And I leave my answering machine on my home phone in the “on” position all the time.
Because I don’t like talking to people. Unless they’re tele-marketers and then I go all nuts on them and they hang up. That I like.
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And I don’t have a landline for that very reason: my cell phone has an ‘off’ button. nert nert nert.
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I have two phones, one for work and one for personal use. My personal phone is not a smart phone and I like it that way. My work phone is and I haven’t yet fully set it up, I dread doing so and I already hate it.
Most days, left to my own devices I leave both of them in the car. I think I am the 1/3 who couldn’t care.
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No, Valentine, you’re the 1/3 who are rational adults.
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I am an nomophobiac.i get mini heart attacks when i can’t feel my phone in my handbag!
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I know that feeling, it’s awful.
Great gravatar, by the way :o)
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thank you…..:)
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so many people suffer from iDumb because of smartphones
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I wish I could blame my phone, but … wait. Could I?
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unless if smartphone can talk back and say, “It’s not my fault if you spend hours wasting your time on me”, theeenn, maybe I’ll think twice. ;)
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Thank goodness I”m not a sufferer. I don’t have a smartphone, only a stupid phone, the normal kind and sometimes I forget to take it with me when I go out. I do look at pictures of smartphones and think about buying one so I might have the symptoms but I can’t afford to spend $800 on a phone I will forget or drop down the loo! :)
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Trust me , Taswegian1957, you don’t need a smartphone. You’re already pretty brilliant. I only wish I had your brains.
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This is Too awful for words – she said quicky checking her phone- but what about the endless latent panic of no quite knowing exactly where your phone is!!.. I have that all the time.. love love.. c
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Who knew, right? I had no idea I was so dependent on my phone until I left it behind one morning. What an awful feeling! I don’t know how, but I made it through the day. Does that count as heroic?
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Nope. It was heroic to try and smuggle a book into the courthouse!.. c
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Hahahaha.
Ah, celi, I love you, you know?
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Love, love Petal!!.. c
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