(Ecns.cn)—The instant you hear the ring tone you reach for your handbag and hastily turn it upside down, only to find no messages, no calls, nothing on your phone. Does this scenario feel like déjà vu?
Experts claim that this is a new and disturbing phenomenon affecting a considerable number of people these days. It's called Ringxiety (neologism formed from the words 'ringer' and 'anxiety.')
30 percent of the patients in the clinic psychology department of Guangzhou's main are Ringxiety suffers, said the New Express Daily.
"Once a while, I feel my cell vibrating but no one is calling; it's driving me nuts," Ms. Liu was quoted as complaining to one newspaper. The woman's hands are constantly clutching her phone.
And it can get worse. A Guangzhou journalist, Ms. Wen, is suffering from insomnia due to Ringxiety. The poor woman laments, "It's a pattern now- whenever I feel sleepy, I hear my phone ring, or I wake up because I think I hear it ringing. It's hard to get back to sleep again."
Experts attribute Ringxiety to stress from over work. It seems those in sales, consulting and media fields are especially prone to developing the troublesome symptoms, which are a particular manifestation of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Normally when their phone rings they jump into work mode and their stand-by frame of mind has been maintained for such a long period that Ringxiety is just a step away, according to Professor Sun Li from East China Normal University.
Apparently, no one wants to miss a call. "But in the event you do," Sun suggests, "you should probably remind yourself you just need a good rest." Turn off your phone after work, experts counsel, as it might help prevent Ringxiety.
Some white collar workers are reluctant to switch off, but then wonder about their real motives. "Am I so desperate for human contact?" a young man asked in a post about his own phone ring hallucinations. Many netizens responded that they also wait for calls and yearn for the company of others.
Researchers, however, believe that the unhealthy and unreasonable reliance on cell phones has a explanation. It is another neurosis like Internet addiction and the "crackberry" compulsion to use and check a BlackBerry wireless device. After all, we are living in an increasingly wireless and connected world, and doomed to suffer from techno-neuroses, they say.
Others have a technical scapegoat of another kind; they blame the frequency of stock cell phone ring tones. Most standard cell ringtones use a frequency of around 1,000 hertz. Humans are particularly attuned to pick up sounds in this range, especially if they're single-toned, like many ring tones. But with our ears on either side of our heads, it's difficult for us to pinpoint the source of a sound, particularly at this frequency. For example, we can be unsure if a sound is coming from a phone or a bird outside the window. For some, this explains the Ringxiety syndrome.
Even, and perhaps especially, those who opt to set their phone to "vibrate" aren't off the hook either, experts point out.
It seems the only way out for phone addicts is to cultivate detachment.
