Which phenomenons are social network and smartphones creating? What do researches and studies proved regarding the dependences on internet and smartphones? In this presentation I have written the reflections done in the first chapter of my bachelor thesis in Marketing, that I hope could be useful to everyone wants to deepen the topic.

1. SMARTPHONE, SOCIAL NETWORK
AND INTERNET: ARE WE ADDICTED?
TECHNOLOGY DEPENDENCE

2. A. CAVIGLIA
WHY DID I WROTE THIS PPT?
2
Hi everyone! What I have gathered in this ppt is the first chapter
of my bachelor thesis in Marketing for the degree course I have
done at the University of Genova - Department of economics. In
this presentation, you will find lot of text, since the purpose is to
write down the first chapter entirely, in order to present in the
wider way possible the subject I'm writing about.
I have decided to publish this chapter because I am increasingly
devoting myself to the social aspects that the devices we use
every day are radically embedded in our lives and, although I
don’t have any socio-psychological background, I'm really
fascinate with these themes.
In addition, I am sure that, even if limited, each of us can find
him/herself within at least one of the cases described below and
can then implement conscious behaviors to limit the effects.
KNOWING YOURSELF IS THE BEGINNING
OF ALL WISDOM [ARISTOTELE]

3. ALONE TOGETHER - SHERRY TURKLE
3
Our reflection starts with the work of Sherry Turkle, a professor of Social Studies on Science
and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a sociologist and
clinical psychologist. Dr. Turkle has been studying the interaction between men and technology
for years and has published numerous books on the subject, including "Alone Together: Why
We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” In a 2012 TED talk, the
sociologist speaks of the problems that technology is pointing to, how we are no longer able to
have a conversation, how we are now unable to be alone. The doctoral analysis starts with the
idea that technology not only is changing what we do but has changed directly us. The idea is
that we are no longer able to stay with ourselves and not only with other people.
I think it has happened to each of us to be with friends or maybe at a meeting and our
interlocutor obsessively observes his cell phone: people want to stay with their friends, but at
the same time they want to be everywhere in the world, connected with everyone and
everything. The real problem is that people are starting to be together but alone.
As stated in his talk, many people have confided to Dr. Turkle to hope to have one day a voice
server that can be more a friend than a simple software. In addition to highlighting great ethical
problems, the real problem is the constant need for someone to listen to. Over the years, more
and more social robots are born, planned to be our companions, perhaps in certain situations,
such as seniors or children. Does this mean that we have no hope of each other? As Alec Ross
explains in his book “The industries of Future," in certain situations, such as the care of seniors
in long-life countries such as Japan, the need for robots capable of carrying out work also in
contact with people will be indispensable. But should they also cover roles that require empathy
with people? This is a question we cannot answer and we will only learn in the future.
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4. I SHARE, THEREFORE I AM
What is certain, the sociologist continues, is that they are creating technologies that will give
us the illusion of the company but without the need for friendship. Our phones offer three
rewarding fantasies: "One, we can turn our attention wherever we want; Two, that we will
always be listened to; And three, we will not be alone. "
The fear of staying alone leads people to want to be always connected: but in this case the
connection is more a symptom than a cure, which is creating a whole new way of being.
"I think, therefore I am," wrote Cartesio. "I share, therefore I am," we write in the third
millennium. If we cannot get a connection, we do not really feel that feeling. If we can not
share that emotion, then we shut it down, kill it. According to Dr. Turkle, the constant desire
to be connected makes us more and more alone, since, from the moment we are no longer
able to be alone, we tend to feel even more alone.
The need is to "start thinking about solitude as a good thing," to create a space for solitude
and conversation, trying to figure out where technology is driving us, what technology is
costing us.
According to a 2012 study conducted by two Essex universities, the presence of a cell phone
on a table induces two people, positioned at that table with the task of talking for ten minutes,
to feel distant, less empathizing with their own partner. The researchers also found that the
presence of the cell phone is decisive depending on the quality of the discussion itself: the
more meaningful and deep the speeches faced, the more people remained distant to their
interlocutor. Born with the purpose of joining, technology has completely changed the way
we want to be: only twenty years ago the kids spent the afternoon playing in the city square,
while their peers in 2017 spent it connected to the cellphone, playing o on the social media.
The sociologist concludes his TED Talk inviting us to use technology in a different way, in a
way that can bring us back to our lives, to our communities, to our politics and to our planet.
It is important to note that Dr. Turkle is not opposed to technology, but rather wants to point
out the importance of a conscious and different use of it to make our lives more real.
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5. A YEAR WITHOUT INTERNET
Paul Miller, a writer and technology journalist, told his experience of one year without
internet, between 2012 and 2013, during a TEDx. In his speech, Miller uses these words "I
also had very different interactions with people , And this is something that has been talked
about by so many people so much about. You know, this Facebook really brings us together
with people or are we just hiding in our computers pretending that we have friends? And
what I found was that without the internet I could be with a person in a much more intense
and much more personal way. Those are words people use, like that was intense, it was
intense hanging out with you."
Miller's sister, during an appointment after that year, confirmed this feeling, defining her
brother “more emotionally available”. This personal experience seems to confirm the studies
quoted by Dr. Turkle.
Miller's advice, generated after returning to the Internet, is to take control of it, as each
person has to change their habits on the Internet: when the connection takes over, we must be
the ones that want to disconnect from it. You have to find the balance.
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6. THE SMARTPHONE DEPENDENCE
According to Ericsson's Mobility Report, the number of smartphones in 2016 was close to four billion, while the number of
mobile device subscriptions amounted to about seven billion and a half. Projections by 2022 show a growth in the number of
smartphones up to 6.8 billion.
The advent of a new technology like smartphone has also created what has been defined as a true dependence.
According to the literature, six different types of behavior can be found on the subjects using the mobile phone. The six types are:
Addictive Behavior: An addiction behavior, as defined by Hanley and William in 1992, is an activity, object, or behavior that has
become the focus of a person in one's life until other activities are excluded. In this case, an uncontrollable and involuntary use of
the phone leads to defining these people as addicted.
Compulsive Behavior: According to O'Guinn and Faber (1989) a compulsive behavior is a repetitive behavior that the affectionate
individual experiences continuously the urgency of doing. Such behavior is really difficult to stop and also leads to economic,
psychological or social consequences.
Dependant behavior: this behavior is different from the previously described addiction as it is often motivated by the correlated
importance of a social norm, which in this case is communication.
Habitual Behavior: Behaviors that many individuals regularly perform can be considered habitual, as they are performed with low
mental awareness (Biel et al, 2005).
Voluntary behavior: Behavior driven by specific motivations, often linked to a positive impact (Kang, Lee, Lee and Choi, 2007).
Mandatory behavior: behavior that needs to be performed, followed or respected, generally because it is officially required (Aoki
and Downes, 2003).
In a research conducted in 2007 by V. Hooper and Y. Zhou entitled "Addictive, dependent, compulsive? A study of mobile phone
usage”, the aim of the researchers was to understand the mobile phone usage among some students. After analyzing the survey
administered to 184 university students, the study showed reliable factors (based on the calculated Cronbach alpha) on only three
of the six behaviors previously described, and in particular for mandatory, voluntary and dependent behaviors, thus highlighting
them as the most common behaviors among college students.
It should be noted that in the "Conclusion and directions for future research" section, the two researchers wrote "Future research
would need to explore mobile phone usage in terms of each behavioral type (except possibly addictive behavior) in more depth.”,
not even thinking an addictive behavior as possible.
6
6,8
BILLIONS OF
SMARTPHONES
IN 2022
ALMOST 4
BILLIONS OF
SMARTPHONES
IN 2016
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7. A REAL ADDICTION
The same type of research was conducted in 2012 by Professor Richard Shambare of Tshwane University of Technology in South
Africa on a sample of 93 students, high school students and university students. The research results were then published in a
research entitled "Are mobile phones the 21st century addiction?". Unlike what Hooper and Zhou discovered, the three types of
behavior highlighted by this search were dependant, habitual and addictive behaviors, thus showing a sharp aggravation of mobile
usage conditions.
In a paper written by Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies at Nottingham Trent University, there are few actual
addiction cases. In fact, according to your research, we are in front of a real smartphone dependency when "Yes" in the answer to at
least six of the following questions:
• My cell phone is the most important thing in my life;
• There have been some conflicts between me and my family and / or my partner about the amount of time I spend on the phone;
• Using my mobile phone often hampers other important things I should do, such as work, study, etc.;
• I spend more time on my cell phone than in any other business;
• I use my cellphone as a way to change my mood;
• Over time, I increased the amount of hours I spend on the cellphone during the day;
• If I can not use my cell phone I feel moody and irritable;
• I often have strong urge to use my cell phone;
• If I cut the amount of hours I spend on my cellphone and then start using it again, it always ends up taking more time on the
phone than I did before;
• I lied to other people about the time I use my mobile phone.
As is easily understandable by reading the above phrases, addiction is a very rare and difficult medical condition. Much more likely,
what many people find is an obsession rather than an addiction, says Dr. Larry Rosen, Emeritus Professor at the Department of
Psychology at California State University. The use of the smartphone seems to be related to a search for a means to reduce anxiety. In
a study, some testers, divided between the heavy, middle and light user of their smartphone, were deprived of their smartphone for 75
minutes.. Their anxiety levels were then recorded after ten, thirty and fifty minutes. The experiment showed a significant increase in
the level of anxiety for the heavy users, a lower increase for the middle and no increase for low users, thus empirically correlating the
level of anxiety with the failure to use their cell phone. Another study has shown an increasing level of anxiety when some testers are
not allowed to respond to their iPhone: increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, excessive sweating, and decreased cognitive
performance were the symptoms experienced by researchers on the testers.
7
“MOBILE PHONE USAGE IS
A COMPULSIVE AND
ADDICTIVE DISORDER
WHICH LOOKS SET TO
BECOME ONE OF THE
BIGGEST NON-DRUG
ADDICTIONS IN THE 21ST
CENTURY” (MADRID, 2003).
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8. NOMOPHOBIA AND TEXTAPHRENIA
Collins Dictionary defines nomophobia as "a state of stress caused by lack of access or the inability to
use your cell phone". It comes from the crash between the words no - mobile and phobia and was used
for the first time in 2008.
Urbandictionary, on the other hand, defines the textaphrenia as "the feeling of hearing the arrival of a
new message when it did not really happen". This word was coined by the MRIT researchers at the
University of Melbourne in 2010.
A research conducted by the SecurEnvoy security company in 2012 on a group of thousands of British
citizens found that at least two-thirds of the respondents suffered from nomophobia, 11% more than a
similar test of four years earlier. The survey shows a correlation between age and predisposition to
nomophobia: the youngest respondent group, aged 18 to 24, showed a 77% of people affected by
nomophobia, 11% more than the next group (25-34 years). The research also warns that those who
spend more than three hours a day on their smartphone are obviously more prepared for nomophobia.
Dr Carroll of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, author of a study on textaphrenia,
highlighted how this discomfort sensation leads the teenagers to believe that no one thinks of them as
they receive no messages. This post-traumatic disorder leads to physical and mental consequences,
such as insecurity, anxiety, disappointment, until depression.
There have also been cases of abnormal thumb growths caused by too much texting among Japanese
teenagers.
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9. FOMO - FEAR OF MISSING OUT
Born as the fear of losing a party that can not be missed, the "Fear to miss it / to be cut off" has in recent years taken on a connotation of social network environments. Released for the first time in
2004, coined by Patrick McGinnis in an article published in the Harvard Business Review magazine, FoMO is defined on urbandictionary.com as "A form of social anxiety - a compulsive concern
that one might miss an opportunity or Satisfying event, often aroused by posts seen on social media websites. ". As can be understood from the definition itself, FoMO is a condition that is born in a
world that is still not pervaded by social networks. Their dissemination, however, has dramatically increased the chances to see their friends engaged in activities they did not know about, to which
they wanted to participate.
The correlation between FoMO and social networks has been studied subsequently. In April 2013, a group of Psychology researchers from various universities, led by Andrew K. Przybylski, Ph.D.
in Oxford, conducted the first experimental research on FoMO, reaching a number of conclusions:
• FoMO is the driving force for social networks;
• The higher FoMO levels are found in young people and, in particular, in males;
• Low levels of satisfaction in your life are related to high levels of FoMO;
• FoMO is high in those who are distracted while driving;
• FoMO is high in students who are distracted during lessons.
It is obvious, therefore, to note that there is close correlation between the use of social networks and FoMO, and indeed, the latter has drastically increased because of them. In fact, social media not
only are used to know the activities of their contacts, but also to complain about their condition, often compared to what their peers do at the same time. Think, for example, when you scroll through
the Facebook wall on Saturday night: people at parties alternated with photos of duvet and tv with comments like "While my peers have fun, I ...". Although unknowingly and without consequences,
these are also examples of FoMO.
But are there any remedies to overcome this fear?
According to Martha Beck, US sociologist and life coach, there are at least three remedies to overcome this condition:
• Be aware that FoMO is based on lies: socials tell only the best part of each of us. People are unlikely to write about the queues they have done in the bank or the moments they are doing
"normal" activities;
• Fight FoMO with FoMO: you have to change the meaning we give to the Acronym FoMO. Instead of Fear of Missing Out, we can call it "Feel Okay More Often";
• Stop: Realizing that important things are happening here and now, not in an imaginary and "facebook" cyber world.
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10. HIKIKOMORI
The Japanese word “hikikomori”, coined in 1998 by Japanese psychologist Tamaki Saitō, is formed by
the words hiku ”pull" and komoru "retreat" and means to "stand apart, isolate" and identify a
phenomenon born in Japan since the mid-1980s. Persons affected by this phenomenon tend to voluntarily
exclude themselves from social life, isolating themselves completely for long periods of time, months,
years or even lifelong.
These people have common features:
• School and / or work refusal;
• Full withdrawal from the company for long periods;
• Depression;
• Obsessive-compulsive behaviors;
• Circadian rhythms completely inverted.
At the origin of this self-exclusion there are several possible causes:
• Pervasive Developmental Disorders: an evolution of these disorders (including Asperger's syndrome
and autism) may be the basis of some cases of hikikomori;
• Social Competitiveness: since the strong competition that Japanese society establishes in its young
people, where academic and work lack of recognition are seen as a serious failure, a desire to isolate
themselves is set in order not to conform to society;
• Ijime: a phenomenon that can be assimilated to "bullying";
• Shame: Very often, hikikomori are guys who feel a deep sense of shame because of economic or
social conditions, and therefore prefer not to show themselves physically in society to not feel this
feeling of shame.
Research does not yet associate the phenomenon of hikikomori with internet addiction, as often it turns
out that during their self-imprisonment, they spend time reading, watching movies or writing. However,
the correlation between using the Internet and the condition of hikikomori is obvious, as they often create
their own relationships in the digital world, preferring messaging to video chat and establishing
relationships through social media and internet in general. Internet is often also used by doctors to
approach the hikikomori, to diagnose the condition and to try to cure it, often not presenting themselves
as doctors but as hikikomori peers.
In Italy, the phenomenon is present, with estimates ranging from about thirty thousand individuals.
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CONCLUSIONS
Starting from these reflections, more or less obvious, about dependency from social network, smartphones and internet that affect
most of the people and also ourselves, we have tried to create a tool that can help us to fight these conditions.
We see two possible solutions to the problem, in opposition to each other.
The first is the total rejection of technology. But we see this hypothesis as utopia: cell phones, social networks and the internet are
and will be present in our lives for at least a few years.
The second solution is to use technology as a support to foster social relationships, trying, secondly, to tackle these types of
problems by trying to bring back people when life was much more offline than online.
The second solution is the one we have to undertake, in order to reduce these dependences and help people to regain the control on
their lives.
11

12. SOURCES
‣ Sherry Turkle, “Connected, but alone?”, link: http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Jessica Love, “We need to chat”, link: https://theamericanscholar.org/we-need-to-chat/# (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Paul Miller, “A year offline, what I have learned”, TEDxEutropolis, link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trVzyG4zFMU (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Ericsson Mobility Report, novembre 2016, link: https://www.ericsson.com/assets/local/mobility-report/documents/2016/ericsson-mobility-report-november-2016.pdf (consulted on
the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Hooper V., Zhou Y., 2007, “Addictive, dependent, compulsive? A study of mobile phone usage”https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f940/1cd66fd7e86eafc30f019d3a480ff7bf182d.pdf
(consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Griffiths M.D., 2013, “Adolescent mobile phone addiction: A cause for concern?”, link: http://www.academia.edu/3372702/
Griffiths_M.D._2013_._Adolescent_mobile_phone_addiction_A_cause_for_concern_Education_and_Health_31_76-78 (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Cheever N., Rosen L., Carrier M., Chavez A., “Out of sight is not out of mind: The impact of restricting wireless mobile device use on anxiety levels among low, moderate and high
users” link: http://www.csudh.edu/psych/Out_of_sight_is_not_out_of_mind-Cheever,Rosen,Carrier,Chavez_2014.pdf (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ R. Clayton, G. Leshner e A. Almond, “The extended iSelf: the impact of iPhone separation on cognition, emotion and physiology”, link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/
jcc4.12109/full (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ Definition of nomofobia, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/it/dizionario/inglese/nomophobia
‣ Definition of textaphrenia, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Textaphrenia
‣ Kung V., “Rise of 'nomophobia': More people fear loss of mobile contact”, link: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/06/tech/mobile/nomophobia-mobile-addiction/ (consulted on the
2nd of July 2017)
‣ A. K. Przybylski, K. Murayama, C. R. DeHaan, V. Gladwell, “Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out”, link: http://www.demardsivas.com/
yonetim/tarifediger/erzurum/deneme-fomos.pdf (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
‣ “Hikikomori: gli adolescenti chiusi in una stanza Il disagio giapponese dilaga in Italia”, “L’Espresso” online, link: http://espresso.repubblica.it/visioni/societa/2015/06/17/news/
hikikomori-gli-adolescenti-chiusi-in-una-stanza-il-disagio-giapponese-dilaga-in-italia-1.217500/amp/ (consulted on the 2nd of July 2017)
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13. A. CAVIGLIA
IF YOU WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME
13
ALBERTO CAVIGLIA
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@ILNONNOALBERTO