Psychoanalyzing the college experience: Is your phone dependency problematic?

When we think of addiction, our minds often head right to drugs, alcohol, sugar and maybe some of the bizarre behaviors we have seen on the show “My Strange Addiction.” 

Addiction is a disease, mostly affecting those with a strong predisposition. It’s chemical, physiological and emotional.

Addict is a loaded word, but the experience of addiction is not far removed from daily life. Most of us feel behavioral urges and dependencies on a regular basis. 

Within our lifetime, people not only learned to live with phones but learned to depend on them. We live under the assumption today that our screens will always be accessible. In their absence, we would feel naked — stripped away from a technological extension of ourselves that we hold near and dear. 

We would feel lost, anxious, awkward and vulnerable.

So while we may not view a handheld block of metal as an addictive substance, there is no doubt that tech companies like Apple have most of us hooked. 

During my semester abroad in Barcelona, my phone was swiped right out of my bag, leaving me disconnected in a foreign country I was still trying to navigate. As I adjusted to my “off the grid” status for about a week and a half, that urge to reach into my pocket and grab my phone to either text someone, look up directions, translate something or check social media remained strong. 

I experienced real emotional and physiological responses each time I went to grab for my phone that wasn’t there, and a sense of panic set in each time I realized I would have to figure things out by myself. 

I had never before viewed my phone use as addictive or problematic, but when I didn’t have access to it for that week, I realized how much I really do depend on it. 

It feels as though it’s impossible to thrive in this world without a phone. In some ways, we have become so accustomed to technology that we failed to develop the skills to navigate the world without it. 

If I didn’t have a group chat to make plans with my friends, my social life would plummet. Without social media, I would be left behind as the culture of my generation evolves. Without GPS, I wouldn’t travel far. Without the ease of Google, I might not know how to find answers to my questions. 

Yet our parents and grandparents navigated their childhoods and most of their adult lives without phones. And strangely enough, I think they were happier.

There’s a great dichotomy in the relationship between humans and technology. Maybe we feel like we need our phones, but should we want them? When it comes to our well-being, are they helping or hurting us? 

Our phones have had immense social and psychological effects on us. We are a generation of great intelligence and innovation, yet we are also a generation riddled with anxiety, insecurities and ADHD. 

Most of us as college students have been guided through adolescence by Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Since its inception, social media has evolved into a powerful, global network. Its impact on our social lives is immense, and it has changed the way we perceive ourselves and others. 

While we are innately prone to make social comparisons, social media makes this behavior excessive. We curate a profile that is supposed to represent our lives but tends to only show off an idealized version. 

As a social media consumer, it’s safe to say that there’s always going to be someone on your feed who seems to be happier, more successful, smarter, richer, more popular or more attractive than you. 

This scale of comparison is unnatural. In my opinion, it is a large contributor to our generation’s plethora of mental health issues. Preying on insecurity, social media sites have created spaces in which we feel a need to belong, yet we tend to close the apps feeling worse than when we opened them.

I am aware that social media doesn’t really make me happier, yet I still check it first thing in the morning and right before bed. My phone makes me lose sleep, lowers my self-esteem, conditions me to have a shorter attention span, uses my personal information and data to manipulate me through targeted advertising and leaves me feeling unsatisfied in a number of ways.  

But with all things considered, I love my phone. It’s a relationship I struggle to rationalize.

Maybe if the world weren’t spiraling into the metaverse, we would all have an easier time finding satisfaction through in-person interactions and experiences. If we didn’t know about how much easier our technology could make our lives, maybe life wouldn’t be this hard. 

Technology is only progressing, and we need to adapt to the digital world in ways that protect our mental well-being. It’s so important to be cognizant of the ways our phones affect us and to compartmentalize the sense of comparison we face each day on social media.

That week-long hiatus I took from my phone in Barcelona made me realize how strong my dependency was, but I made it through and I had never felt more self-sufficient. We need to remember that we can live without them, and sometimes we should. 

Take breaks, log off, hone in on skills that enable you to feel less dependent and take notice of when your phone is doing more harm than good.