 This video is brought to you by Psych2Go.net Hey Psych2Go people, Jeff and David here to bring you a Psych on the Go video today about the psychology of mobile phone use. Today's topic was brought to us by our contributing writer, Risha May, who researched a few psychological behaviors that we often encounter when using mobile phones, but might not necessarily know the names of. A lot of these behaviors are often so intuitive to us that we aren't even aware of them until somebody points them out to us. Hmm? Oh, let's get to the behaviors. Have you ever lost track of where you put your mobile phone? Where's my phone? Well it turns out that that feeling of dread and heart-stopping fear is actually not that in common. The term nomophobia, which is short for no mobile phone phobia, was coined during a 2010 study commissioned by the UK Post Office. Researchers found that nearly 53% of mobile phone users in Britain tended to be anxious when they lost mobile connectivity, and that the panic of losing your phone actually resembles the panic of having a near-death experience. I can't find my phone. So don't worry, freaking out is actually kind of normal. By the way, remember the 90s when most of us didn't even have cell phones? Nah, you probably don't. So, what is it about smartphones that gets us so fixated on their little palm-sized screens, so much so that we often have trouble looking away? Hey, look at this. There's something called internet addiction disorder, or compulsive internet use. Well, it turns out that compulsive internet use can be categorized as a behavioral addiction, similar to an addiction to gambling or any other compulsive behaviors. Both drug addicts and gambling addicts have shown that engaging in their addictions have triggered activities in the Meso-Olympic dopamine pathways. That's the pleasure center of the brain. Well, as it turns out, many activities on the internet such as social networking, chat messaging, and gaming have also produced similar effects on the brain of frequent users. Hey, send me a life on Candy Brush. However, whether or not users can actually become addicted to the internet itself, or rather just the content provided on the internet, is still a hotly debated topic among researchers. Oh, I got one. Personally, I'd like to think that I could live without the internet for at least a day or two. As for those of us who can't live without our phones, just remember that the human brain isn't really adept at multitasking. Many studies have shown that trying to focus on two or more things at the same time leads to slower response times or psychological refractory periods towards additional stimuli. Other things which can impair our PRP performances include alcohol and caffeine, where alcohol affects both the speed and accuracy of how your brain processes information and caffeine affects just the accuracy. And of course, a third thing that can slow down our brain's response times can be age. Studies have shown that older adults take more time to switch from task to task and to process information from different tasks than younger adults do. Essentially, while we're all looking down at our phones and trying to do other tasks at the same time, our brains are about as slow and unresponsive as those of older drunken versions of ourselves. So, just remember to look up once in a while. And that's it for this episode of Psych On The Go.