Last updated April 12, 2019
This probably won’t come as much of a surprise, but there has been a new study released that says that many of us become overly attached to our cell phones. That the panic we feel when our cell phones go missing is along the lines of that which we feel when the family pet goes astray.
“The cell phone’s no longer just a cell phone; it’s become the way we communicate and a part of our life,” said Dr. Esther Swilley, marketing professor at Kansas State University.
Dr. Swilley’s areas of research include the phenomenon of mobile technology and how our cell phones have become completely enmeshed in our daily lives. So much so that our cell phones are the first thing we interact with in the morning and the last thing at night. Some of us admit to even sleeping with our cells.
To create this most recent study, Dr. Swilley observed Kansas State University students interacting with their cell phones as well as surveying the students taking her course. The majority of those who participated were between 19 and 24 years of age, with 52% being men. She said that most involved said that their affection for their cell phones came from its functionality as a multimedia device rather than a communications tool. According to the group, games were the most important application.
One interest note was that those surveyed also said that their cell phones allow for little or no self-expression. Basically that, while their cell phones were a part of them, they were not an expression of them.