20 Signs You Might Actually Be Addicted to Your Phone, According to Science

If you feel naked and afraid without it, you're not alone.

Does this accurately describe how you feel when you leave your phone at home?

Well, a new study suggests that nomophobia—the fear of not having your mobile phone on you—is as legit as being afraid of heights. (The term nomophobia was first coined in a 2010 British study and is a an abbreviation for "no-mobile-phone phobia.")

For this study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, researchers at Iowa State University asked college-aged men and women to answer questions to determine if they could be considered "dependent" on their phones. The four men and five women selected all owned a smart phone for at least a year, had Internet on their phone, spent more than an hour a day on it, and scored the highest on a test that assessed their dependence on their phone.

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Researchers then interviewed each person about things like how they would feel if they left their phone at home and couldn't use it all day and whether or not they would feel anxious if they wanted to use their phone but couldn't. From their answers, the researchers created a questionnaire to help identify someone who might have nomophobia. Then, they gave that questionnaire to 300 students and discovered the reasons the participants were most afraid of not having their phone: not being able to communicate, losing their connection to others, not being able to get information online, and giving up convenience.

Keep in mind that nomophobia isn't in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the handbook that doctors use to diagnose someone with a mental health condition. So it's not something like anorexia or post-traumatic stress disorder, which are in the DSM and have a defined set of symptoms that a doctor can use to figure out if you have one of these conditions. However, the study authors hope that their findings will help nomophobia make its way into the DSM.

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Though it's good to know that your cell phone-withdrawal symptoms might actually be validated by science (and are someting that other people experience, too), the authors note that the fact that all of the participants are undergraduate students, who might use their phone more than other adults, might limit the results of their study. They write that more research needs to be done to see if the nomophobia assessment applies to other groups of people.

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In the meantime, see how many of these statements from the study authors' survey you agree with. The more of these that sound like you, the more likely you are to have nomophobia.

1. I would feel uncomfortable without constant access to information through my smartphone.

2. I would be annoyed if I could not look information up on my smartphone when I wanted to do so.

3. Being unable to get the news (e.g., happenings, weather, etc.) on my smartphone would make me nervous.

4. I would be annoyed if I could not use my smartphone and/or its capabilities when I wanted to do so.

5. Running out of battery in my smartphone would scare me.

6. If I were to run out of credits or hit my monthly data limit, I would panic.

7. If I did not have a data signal or could not connect to Wi-Fi, then I would constantly check to see if I had a signal or could find a Wi-Fi network.

8. If I could not use my smartphone, I would be afraid of getting stranded somewhere.

9. If I could not check my smartphone for a while, I would feel a desire to check it.

If I did not have my smartphone with me,

10. I would feel anxious because I could not instantly communicate with my family and/or friends.

11. I would be worried because my family and/or friends could not reach me.

12. I would feel nervous because I would not be able to receive text messages and calls.

13. I would be anxious because I could not keep in touch with my family and/or friends.

14. I would be nervous because I could not know if someone had tried to get a hold of me.

15. I would feel anxious because my constant connection to my family and friends would be broken.

16. I would be nervous because I would be disconnected from my online identity.

17. I would be uncomfortable because I could not stay up-to-date with social media and online networks.

18. I would feel awkward because I could not check my notifications for updates from my connections and online networks.

19. I would feel anxious because I could not check my email messages.

20. I would feel weird because I would not know what to do.

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