Is iPhone Addiction a Problem?

Not a lot of hard data here. Students are "worried" - iPhones make them "happier." I agree we should be concerned about addiction, in particular to mobile devices, gaming, and the Internet. One interesting nugget is the trend toward personalization of their mobile devices and that these devices are the hub of their social lives.

Students Worry About iPhone Addiction

A survey of Stanford University undergraduates has found that students love their iPhones, but maybe a little too much.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that a survey of 200 students found that about a third worried about becoming iPhone addicts and more than a third heard concerns that they used their iPhones too much. About 75 percent of those surveyed said owning an iPhone made them happier.

A graduate anthropology class in research methods at Stanford conducted the survey last spring. Tanya Luhrmann, who taught the course, told the Mercury News that one of the most striking things her group found was the way students identified with their iPhones.

'It was not so much with the object itself, but it had so much personal information that it became a kind of extension of the mind and a means to have a social life,' Ms. Luhrmann said. 'It just kind of captured part of their identity.'