Relatedly, people feel less control over their behaviours under hypnosis ( 32), such as feeling their arm lifting without their apparent control. People commonly report a loss of self-control when using their phones ( 30), especially if they feel addicted to them ( 31). People can become side-tracked while simply trying to check the time on their phone ( 28) and report being “sucked down a rabbit hole of un-productivity” ( 29) or “into some mindless … black hole” ( 30). Similar time distortions are well known in hypnosis people consistently underestimate how long they were hypnotised for, and the higher their hypnotisability, the larger this distortion ( 26, 27).įinally, hypnosis and smartphone use can both elicit automatic behaviours with a reduced feeling of control. Accordingly, several measures of problematic smartphone use probe whether people use their phone longer than they intend ( 24, 25). People underestimate the amount of time spent on their phone ( 22), with heavier smartphone users showing greater distortions ( 23). Hypnosis and smartphone use can also both distort time perception. Similarly, many people report being heavily absorbed in their experience when under hypnosis ( 18, 19), and trait absorption tends to correlate with hypnotisability ( 12, 20, 21). Several cities have already established special walking lanes for smartphone users, and researchers have developed phone functions to warn users about incoming objects in the environment, highlighting the extent of absorbed attention when using a phone. Heavy smartphone users often find themselves in these absorbed states, leading to the term “smartphone zombie” to describe the head-down phone-absorbed user, who occasionally walks into other pedestrians-or into traffic ( 17). Absorption predicts addictive behaviours in the context of gambling ( 7, 13), video games ( 14), internet use ( 15), and problematic smartphone use ( 16). Absorption refers to the tendency to become immersed in one’s thoughts or experiences ( 12), such as forgetting about the movie theatre while watching a film. We propose that hypnosis and heavy smartphone use may share phenomenological features such as absorption, time distortion, and automaticity. The American Psychological Association defines hypnosis as a “state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterised by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion” ( 10), though researchers debate aspects of this definition ( 11). No studies have yet attempted to link these phenomena, so we present the first test of this hypothesis. ![]() If heavy smartphone use can resemble hypnosis, people who are more hypnotisable may also be more prone to problematic smartphone use, in which phone use interferes with daily life ( 9). Madrigal ( 6) even likens the “hypnotic” state of endless social media scrolling to the trance-like absorption of slot machines ( 7), due to their intermittent rewards ( 8). Researchers and reporters have compared this heavy phone use to a trance or hypnosis ( 4, 5). In the United States, 96% of young adults own a smartphone ( 1) and half of teenagers report feeling addicted to their phones ( 2) other developed countries show similar rates ( 3). Smartphone use has risen dramatically in the past decade. We hypothesise that targeting the absorbed, time-distorted, and automatic use of smartphones may promote healthier phone habits. The addiction scores in this Canadian sample were unexpectedly high ( M = 31.41) compared to other countries. This correlation was small but unlikely spurious: it was positive in 10 of the 11 samples (including two from psychology courses) and persisted in a follow-up several months later. 001) with a magnitude similar to standard predictors of hypnotisability. ![]() There was a positive correlation between hypnotisability and smartphone addiction ( r =. Over 11 public lectures, we hypnotised 641 student-aged participants after the hypnosis session, participants completed the Smartphone Addiction Scale (Short Version). In this pre-registered study, we tested whether there was a relationship between smartphone addiction and hypnotisability: one’s tendency to follow suggestions under hypnosis. Hypnosis and heavy smartphone use are both characterised by absorbed states in which one loses track of time and responds automatically to stimuli.
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