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A quick glance at your phone — and suddenly 20 minutes have vanished. Checking messages, scrolling through social media, watching a short video: for many people, the smartphone has become a constant companion. But where does useful connectivity end, and where does dependency begin? More and more experts are warning about the consequences of excessive phone use, from concentration problems to sleep disturbances. “Smartphone addiction” isn’t an official medical diagnosis, but it describes a pattern of behavior that is becoming increasingly visible in everyday life.
According to Alfred U. Musalek — long-time medical director of the Anton Proksch Institute and now head of the Institute for Social Aesthetics and Mental Health at Sigmund Freud University in Vienna — the parallels to classic addiction disorders are striking.
“The criteria for addiction include loss of control, increasing consumption, and psychological or physical withdrawal symptoms such as irritability or anxiety. We see the same patterns in smartphone addiction, and they can resemble alcohol withdrawal. In advanced cases, a person may even structure their entire life around their phone. So both psychologically and physically, the characteristics of addiction are present.”
Musalek emphasizes that the issue isn’t just frequent phone use — it’s essentially a form of social media addiction. What’s particularly typical, he says, are the “as-if relationships” people build through constant posting, liking, and online interaction. Older adults are less affected because they experience less social pressure. They rarely show the loss of control that defines smartphone addiction. But among people aged 30 to 50, it’s increasingly common.
The situation becomes especially concerning for children and teenagers. “Young people often refuse to do what adults tell them,” Musalek explains, “but they imitate everything adults do.” Adults with problematic phone habits — especially parents — therefore pose a real risk to the next generation, who copy their behavior. On top of that, social pressure among young people is particularly intense.
“Mobbing has always existed,” he says. “It used to happen within a single classroom. Now it has a completely different reach.” Today, a child can suddenly be targeted by hundreds of peers online. “That can be an enormous psychological burden.”
Another sign that smartphone addiction behaves like a classic dependency: it often appears alongside other mental health conditions. “We frequently see co-morbidities such as depression, anxiety disorders, or stress-related reactions,” Musalek notes. Many people try to cope with these underlying issues through addictive behavior — a kind of misguided “self-medication.” This pattern is well known from alcoholism, where people use alcohol to numb depressive symptoms.
In many countries, including Austria, policymakers are currently debating age restrictions for social media use on smartphones. Musalek believes regulation is necessary but warns against overestimating its impact.
“We have age limits for alcohol consumption too. In Austria, it’s 16 — but the actual age of first use is between 11 and 13. A social media ban alone won’t solve the problem.”
Still, he sees promising early attempts to develop targeted therapies for smartphone addiction. “We’re at the beginning, but we’ve already learned a lot from those affected.” One example is a pilot project at a Vienna school, where students practiced “phone fasting” for three weeks. The goal was to offer alternatives to heavy social media use. Afterward, teachers reported that students talked and played with each other more again. Face-to-face interaction, Musalek says, was experienced as more emotionally rewarding.
