Researchers say problematic smartphone use like an addiction – National [Video]

Anita Hagh couldn’t stop pressing the corner of her phone screen where the Facebook app used to be.

It was about five years ago, and she had deleted the social media platform from her cellphone.

It was like muscle memory, she says, having clicked on the app countless times so she could scroll for hours through random online groups.

She realized she had been losing out on sleep while scrolling and made the difficult decision to delete the app.

“After deleting it, I was very much thinking it was still there, kind of like a phantom limb situation,” said the 28-year-old post-doctoral researcher at McGill University’s department of integrated studies in education.

Hagh, who is researching the addictive nature of social media, said she believes she was likely experiencing what’s called “problematic smartphone use” or phone addiction.

Jay Olson, a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Toronto’s psychology department, led a 2023 global study that surveyed …