Phone Addiction Symptoms

Shaan shares his experience of putting his phone away for an entire weekend and noticing his addiction-like withdrawal symptoms.

"I did something I've never really done before - I put my phone in a drawer Friday and didn't touch it till Monday morning. It felt like withdrawals from an addiction. There were funny things and little moments where I noticed it more.

I would keep patting my pocket. I'd put my kids in their car seat, shut the door, and walking around the car to get to my side, I instinctively tried to check my phone. Why do I need to check my phone in this 3-second break walking around my car? It's pretty crazy. There were just a hundred moments like that where I instinctively wanted to go pull to refresh - I needed to get my feed.

I found myself doing random things - I was humming a lot, I read a lot. Time went way slower but not in a bad way necessarily. It was a lot more peaceful. Even feeding the kids was different - normally I've got my phone, they've got their cartoons, we're all just cartooned up and I'm shoving bites of mac and cheese in their mouth. But without the phone, it really slowed me down.

By any definition, I'm completely addicted to my phone. If I don't have it, I kind of freak out a little bit. I'm like 'I gotta go get my phone, hold on, wait, whatever we're doing, I gotta go get it.' Finding myself instinctively reaching into my pockets or really wondering 'what time is it, did somebody text me?' It's like, who cares? I don't really need any of this."