The Nomophobia Test: Fear of Being Without Your Mobile Phone

Take the test for ‘nomophobia': short for “no-mobile-phone phobia”. Psychologists have developed a test for nomophobia: the fear of being without your phone. Nomophobia is short for “no-mobile-phone phobia”. The researchers found four aspects to nomophobia: not being able to communicate, losing connectedness, not being able to access information, and giving up convenience. People in the study responded to the statements below on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). You can add up your total score, by adding your responses to each item. The higher the score, the more you ‘suffer’ from nomophobia. Here are the statements: I would feel uncomfortable without constant access to information through my smartphone. I would be annoyed if I could not look information up on my smartphone when I wanted to do so. Being unable to get the news (e.g., happenings, weather, etc.) on my smartphone would make me nervous. I would be annoyed if I could not use my smartphone and/or its capabilities when I wanted to do so. Running out of battery in my smartphone would scare me. If I were to run out of credits or hit my monthly data limit, I would panic. 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. If I could not use my smartphone, I would be afraid of getting stranded somewhere. 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: I would feel anxious because I could not instantly communicate with my family and/or friends. I would be worried because my family and/or friends could not reach me. I would feel nervous because I would not be able to receive text messages and calls. I would be anxious because I could not keep in touch with my family and/or friends. I would be nervous because I could not know if someone had tried to get a hold of me. I would feel anxious because my constant connection to my family and friends would be broken. I would be nervous because I would be disconnected from my online identity. I would be uncomfortable because I could not stay up-to-date with social media and online networks. I would feel awkward because I could not check my notifications for updates from my connections and online networks. I would feel anxious because I could not check my email messages. I would feel weird because I would not know what to do. The study was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior (Yildrim et al., 2015).