Addictive "checking" behaviour found in smart phone users

People check their smartphones throughout the working day. A typical check routine takes around 30 seconds.

Checkings do not occur randomly; they are associated with a small set of contexts that trigger them, such as reading email when commuting or checking news while bored.

Habits are automatically triggered behaviors and compromise the more conscious control that some situations require and studies are already starting to associate smartphone use to dire consequences like driving accidents and poor work-life balance.

The researchers concern is that, for example, if your habitual response to, say, boredom, is that you pick up the phone to find interesting stimuli, you will be systematically distracted from the more important things happening around you.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r680hv602p5xv2h4/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110725101222.htm