Smartphone Addiction Increases Anxiety And Depression, Study Finds

It might feel like the same old story, where elders take issue with new technology and tell the younger generation that their addiction to gadgets would result in problems. However, this time, tutting adults might have science on their side, at least when it comes to smartphones. According to a recent study, smartphone addiction can result in an imbalance in the brain’s chemistry, thus leading to a host of psychological issues.

According to the findings by researchers from Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, smartphone addiction creates an imbalance in the brain’s chemical makeup, Futurism reports. The study was led by Hyung Suk Seo, a professor of neuroradiology and the data was gathered by scanning the brains of teens who were diagnosed to have the affliction via magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS).

The subjects were comprised of nine males and ten females totaling 19 participants who were in their mid to late teens. The results of the scans of these individuals were then compared to healthier subjects who were the control group.

The teens were then subjected to standardized tests and asked questions with regards to their habits, their activities, and their quality of life, in general. Based on the results of the tests, the patients with smartphone addiction were essentially more prone to psychological conditions including anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Smartphone addicts were even found to have less impulse control, thus making them more likely to act or react without thinking. This is a problem because according to recent data from the Pew Research Center, up to 46 percent of Americans said that they could no longer function without their smartphones.

What’s more, the chemical imbalance in the brain that the researchers observed has also been linked to the inability of patients to process experiences as they happen. This basically means that smartphone addicts are not living life in the same way that healthy people do.