Study says obsessive cellphone users either have poor self-esteem or are extroverts
Not sure we want to get too reflective about our own compulsions and obsessions, since you can usually find us curled up in the fetal position whenever we're without our trusty Treo, but some researchers at Monash University in Australia did some psychological testing of obsessive cellphone users and concluded that there is definitely a connection between personality type and "problem phone use." (Define "problem"!). Apparently these problem phone users are more likely to either be people with poor self-esteem who "seek reassurance using their phones or they are unhappy and using their phones to reach out to others," or extroverts who tend to use their cellphones to "make social arrangements with a large network of friends." Which sounds like we're straying into the territory of the obvious here. C'mon should we be all that surprised that people are using their phones to stay connected to other people, and that people who have an overarching need for connectedness might become a little dependent on their cellphones? Man, it's amazing we still have a functioning society, ain't it?
[Via textually.org]
