Nomophobia
Back in 2008, the UK Post Office tapped an outside research firm to survey 2,163 mobile phone users across the region, seeking to figure out how anxious these newfangled devices were leaving customers. You won’t be surprised to find out that the answer was: pretty darn anxious! More than half of respondents—around 53%, to be precise—reported feeling a specific kind of jittery nervousness whenever their phone lost its signal, was shut off, or just… wasn’t in their hand for a little while.
The researchers decided to call these people’s condition “nomophobia”—literally an abbreviation for “no mobile phone phobia,” or a fear of being without mobile phone access for a prolonged period of time. Since that first survey, researchers across the globe have put out study after study detailing how this phobia is closely related to other issues, like chronic depression, sleeping disorders, and low self-esteem.
