Smartphoniacs

Smart phone addicts.

Musing on the phenomenon of smart phone addiction in The Wall Street Journal, Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne listed “five tell-tale traits ofSmartphoniacs” – “the top 10% of smart-phone users – who just can’t stop”:

Do they take their smart phones with them when they get up from the table to go to the restroom – and do they take an awful lot of trips there?

Do you receive messages from them while you know they are driving (increasingly being banned in state after state), or at midnight on Saturday night?

Do they come up with excuses in the middle of a conversation to pull out their smart phone – something like “let me jot something you said down so I don’t forget it,” and then sneak a look at all their messages?

Are they suffering from sprained or elongated thumbs?

Do they openly use their smart phones in inappropriate places, such as first dates, at Rosh Hashanah or Christmas dinner, in hospital delivery rooms, or on job interviews?

Penn and Zalesne further warned:

We’re not far away from Smartphoniacs Anonymous or Mothers Against Smart Phones. We’ve been through this with TV, the Internet and videogames. In the end it all works out and we successfully integrate them into our lives, even though we are never again the same. At least with smart phones, with all their usage counters, we will be able to tell who has recovered from the binge.