You know since recently moving to the bustling city of Melbourne from rural Tassie, I've become very agile at dodging people on city streets. It's not that I don't like my fellow Melburnians but I'm starting to get the impression that a hell of a lot of you have turned into mobile phone zombies, oblivious not only to your fellow pedestrians, but the joie de vivre of the real world. You know...the one that's just beyond the phone.

Now although my footpath dexterity has ascended to Olympic standard I feel the need to tell a cautionary tale about our ever increasingly "connected" world, and the actual disconnection that seems to have ensued. As a lawyer, I can smell a bad marriage from a mile off and I'm afraid mounting evidence suggests it's time for you to separate from your phone.

Reason Number 1- It's Making You Obsessive!

When it comes to mobile phones I haven't developed much of a fatal attraction.





Take a look at my poor old mobile phone, a Samsung SGH 310 that cost $29.95. Bought in 2008 (please don't laugh), it has served me well - particularly on those rare occasions when I've broken down in the middle of nowhere and needed road service.

You might be thinking, 'what a tired old luddite I am', and in a way you could be right. But I just can't make sense of all the constant checking, sms-ing and general dependence today's folk have on their phone. Obsessed by the tripe these phones deliver up, people seem to have been driven to distraction. An inability to be away from this electronic leash for even a few minutes is just one indicator that maybe many of us are not functioning at our best level.

As Larry Rosen, psychologist and author of I-disorder sadly notes:

'if our minds are always worrying about what we are missing then how can we focus our attention on what we are getting?'

And Rosen's research highlights some concerning trends. 62% of igeneration individuals (those born from around the mid-nineties) were found to check their text/sms messages every 15 minutes or less. However, for baby boomers (those born between 1946-64) the study found that only 18% of them were as active. The same study also revelled that 51% of 'i-gens' get moderately or highly anxious when they can't check their phone as often as they would like, as opposed to just 15% of baby boomers.

For Rosen, there are concerning parallels with phone overuse and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Think of it like this my tech meerkats, if you're constantly having repeated thoughts, feelings or ideas that drive you to use your phone every few minutes, then your behaviour is starting to parallel the features of an OCD.

Indeed, I recall one morning where a simple search on the internet for 'walking tours' left me 2 hours later half dazed and wondering whether I should purchase a new pair of Nikes or Pumas or those sweat free socks my browsing miraculously led me to.

How did I fall down that rabbit hole? Where did all my precious TIME go? Damn you tech but I bet I'm not the only one who has wasted part of their day in a tech-trance that always seems to make one...poorer.

Reason Number 2- It Encourages Multitasking Madness

You've got to love the consummate multitasked individual. You know, someone who with the flick of a finger can move between an sms to a friend to checking out an Instagram pic to looking at his Facebook feed while at the same time getting a handle on the latest internet gossip news. Said person is probably also smoking a ciggie with bottom firmly ensconced on their porcelain potty.

Reminds me of those words of wisdom from my Granny - "Doing many things at once means you won't do any of them very well".

And all this mobile phone multitasking, complimented by the attractive and distractive sounds and visuals, is stressing and overloading our brains. And if we're sneaking this in while at work, it's also greatly hampering our work performance.





Gloria Mark, professor at the University of California's Department of Informatics, found that participants in her mobile phone study took an average of more than 25 minutes to return to their original task after they interrupted themselves with one of those meerkat mobile moments. The good professor also found that those who self interrupted more (used their phones constantly to check on something) were often more stressed at work than those who spent more time focusing on a single task.

All this mobile multitasking seems reminiscent of the classic symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). And what are the classic symptoms of ADHD? Well there's not paying attention to details; disliking not wanting to do activities that take significant mental effort for long periods of time; being easily distracted and forgetful; hyperactivity and impulsiveness. Does this ring any (mobile phone) bells?

Number 3- It Brings Out The Meanie in You

Hiding behind that phone, it's just so damn easy to be anonymous...and mean.

Let me tell you about a fellow I know. Normally a rather charming person, whenever he feels hard done by a business, a failed internet paramour or even a blog comments moderator, his fingers start to itch and he morphs into his secret mobile phone nom de plume of "Crankybird_88".

Crankybird has been known to write the meanest reviews of the 3 star motels he has stayed in, the most vicious attacks of people who have rejected his cupid arrows and the most dismissive and insulting comments to anyone who has disagreed with his blog comments. Talk about Jekyll and Hyde!

There's a saying that on the internet nobody knows you're a dog. And there seems to be a increased amount of anonymous ones revelling in character assassination, scathing reviews and just plain old meanness. A study by Morahan-Martin and Schumacher on compulsive internet use discusses this phenomenon, suggesting the ability to fraudulently self-represent from behind a phone or computer screen may be part of the compulsion to actually go online. But the more one gets a taste for this disinhibition, the more the bad genie stays out of the bottle.

MIT Professor Sherry Turkle, author of Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, notes that:

"we are all feeling free to pop off and say things in our screen life that we would never say in real life"









Reason Number 4- It's Making You Sick

Ah the joy of clutching that phone all day. The loss of exercise, carpal tunnel syndrome, eye and back strain and the thumb text arthritis. I mean do people really think that spending all day thumb swiping and tapping on your phone was that digits god given purpose? One study by Telecommunications giant Telefonica found that 1 in 20 adults in the U.K. think that one of their thumbs is bigger than the other, thanks to "swiping" on smartphone screens. The study also mentioned that the enlarged thumbs could be due to the increased workout of having to grapple with bigger handsets.

Well at least these days one part of the body is getting some exercise!





But it's a little more serious than that. Doctors have coined a term for the swollen and aching fingers they are seeing in increasing numbers- 'Textitis'. Textitis was coined after American hand surgeon Dr Mark Ciaglia revealed how patients with problems in their joints are getting increasingly younger. He now sees patients younger than 40, compared to just a few years ago when almost all were at least 50.

He knew what was to blame and was adamant that:

‘With texting and video games and excessive use of computers , you are wearing the joints out sooner’





Christina Jenaro of the University of Salamanca also found in her study on mobile phone overuse that apart from the Textitus and RSI, 10% of her participants also exhibited other bodily complaints, insomnia, social disfunction, anxiety and depression.

And to think they told me that keeping up with a constant information stream from 2000 Facebook 'friends' was gonna be easy. Ouch!

Reason Number 5- Romancing the screen and Sexting

Strolling past the windows of some of Melbourne's gorgeous restaurants I am shellshocked to see that potential intimate and romantic dinners have been kidnapped by cell phone zombies. Glassy eyed and away with the birdies, neither partner seems to get the point of what such a special occasion is all about - communication with each other.





And what of this insidious phenomenon called 'sexting'. Prevalent amongst teenagers (and the odd US Senator). Australia's E-safety Commissioner for Children notes that:

'While sharing suggestive images or text messages may seem like innocent flirting or be considered funny for young people, sexting can have serious social and legal consequences.'

Researcher Danah Boyd also mentions that ‘teens share images for all kinds of reasons... to express developing sexuality, to impress or be liked and to keep up with what they think is the norm. Most images are shared within relationships and most teens don’t expect images to be shared with others, with the exception of a few who hope they will gain fame'. But surely we can impress and gain fame with a little more than our appendages.

And of course images viewed by others often end up being shared online, leading to public bullying and sexually inappropriate comments made about the victim by friends and strangers, including adults.

For those of you engaging in sexting, both young and old, do you really want to end up as a penniless porn star on sites that are solely for adult gratification?

Reason Number 6- You Don't Need One Thousand Selfies

Are you one of those people who likes taking selfies? Perhaps you feel the need to get that perfect picture by taking several dozen shots with your iPhone of the same thing...which is umm normally you.

Do you then post day after day or even hour after hour pictures of you know who to all the different social media sites you're connected with?

Do you constantly photograph your food, your pets and your friends for no apparent reason?





Well it pains me to remind you that not so long ago life wasn't a never ending nirvana of endless shots. You see in ancient times we used a thing called a camera which shockingly didn't have a phone built inside it. Yes thats right, it only did ONE thing!

And to take photos you needed to actually buy rolls of film which came in 12s, 24s and for the really keen photographer 48s. After paying for the film and taking the photos you then had to pay for your film to be developed. After waiting for it to be developed you would hold your breath in anticipation until your newly minted photos were handed over to you.

And like real life, some of them weren't that...perfect. But that was part of the joy and the fun of the box of photographic candy that was returned to you - Grandma's blinkered look and Uncle Bob's Machiavellian sideways grin. There was no post-eraser to fix or tart the photo up so one looked their most artificially glamorous, you just got a snapshot of life at that moment. Bliss!









Try and take a more breaks from your phone over the holidays and go and experience nature - it really has been proven to decrease stress. Apparently what happens is that our attention is driven by calming external stimuli seen in nature which allows parts of the brain that are overworked to recover. Botanic gardens walk or trawl through shopping centre taking selfies? I know which one I'd pick.

Don't let the world pass you by as you stare into that cell phone's eye. Because your real social capital will come from people you know in the physical world rather than through your virtual social networks.

Let me leave you with one final thought from Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University and awardee of the Australian Society for Medical Research Medal:

"Rather than sleepwalking into this we should be masters and not the slaves of technology and harnessing it in ways that we could do exciting and fulfilling things with".





********************************************************

Tune into Australia's most enjoyable free legal information site:





Take a look at the Eagle and enjoy the fun and easy way we help with the law.

And you can follow me and the Eagle on Facebook and Twitter.