Is your Smartphone the reason for all your Stress?

Nia Rivers

Almost all of us have one; and most of us will probably have it on our person or near us as we read this right now. A smartphone. A device that allows us productivity enhancement as well as giving us the ability to obtain information in a matter of seconds. The introduction of the iPhone to global markets back in 2007 changed the mobile industry and on top of entertainment and diversions it allows us social information and the ability to stay connected worldwide. Despite the many uses and advantages of smartphones, there are disadvantages that come with it as well. A study by Jon D. Elhai highlight the relationship that problematic smartphone use can have with anxiety and depression. Problematic smartphone use can develop through the tendency of notifications and alerts to serve as cues for automatic checking behaviors. These habits serve as a gateway to increased, potentially problematic smartphone use through things like trying to obtain social reassurance, “Fear of missing out” (FoMO), extraversion as well as impulsivity.

Most prominent psychological models of addiction argue that compulsory use comes out of a process of positive and/or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement models of addiction use an incentive sensitization theory which posits that addiction initially develops as a process of mood enhancement. In the beginning an individual enjoys and then eventually craves the positive aspects of the compulsory behavior like notification checking. Pavlovian learning, or classical conditioning refers to a learning procedure in which a stimulus is paired with a previously neutral stimulus. This study was done by Ivan Pavlov who used the stimulus of food, and the neutral stimulus of a bell, so that after a period of conditioning when the bell rung the dogs would salivate without the stimulus of food. In early stages problem cellphone use displays Pavlovian learning; having individuals attuned to small cues that signal a reward but eventually produces a disconnect between “like” and “wanting” engagement in the behavior. As the behavior becomes more compulsory, the individual begins to experience negative mood when not engaging in the behavior, a kind of withdrawal. Problematic smartphone use can be seen as craving positive emotion to alleviate negative emotion through a.) habitual use and checking behaviors; b.) seeing excessive reassurance and c.) reluctance to miss important information or content.

Elhai and his fellow peers conducted a systematic review of publications from 2008 until 2015 that examined clinical disorders and their relationship with smartphone use that are incorporated in DSM-5, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition that is used by the American Psychiatric Association as a diagnostic tool for psychiatric diagnoses. Their general findings suggest that problematic as well as general smartphone use commonly co-occur with things like depression, anxiety and stress. Depression severity had a consistent, significant link with smartphone addiction and based on effect size convention had at least medium effect sizes when involving on two variables, though they were slightly lower on average when statistically controlling them for other variables. Anxiety severity was also consistently, significantly associated with problem smartphone use, with small effect sizes. Stress was fairly consistent, while self-esteem was not consistently associated with problem use.

But there is the other side of this coin. Placed within a larger context of technological relations and the internet there is also evidence that psychopathology, such as depression or anxiety, can be the cause of a technological addiction. Chronically stressed individuals are found to use online video gaming as a coping mechanism to relieve stress, and furthermore some depressed individuals use their mobile phones as a coping method to deal with negative emotions.

With these two arguments at play there is a third. Other evidence suggests a relationship that can go in two directions; where problem smartphone use drives mental illness, and mental illness drives problematic smartphone use. Further research will continue to be done on this subject, seeing as smartphones don’t look like they are going out of style anytime soon.