Nomophobia

Where the word comes from

“No-mobile-phone phobia”, squeezed into one word. It first appeared in a 2008 study commissioned by the UK Post Office and run by YouGov. Of more than 2,000 mobile users surveyed, about 53% said they felt anxious when they lost their phone, ran out of battery or had no signal (Wikipedia). That was a commercial poll, not peer-reviewed research.

Academics picked it up in the 2010s. Brazilian researchers asked in 2013 whether it was dependency on virtual environments or a form of social phobia. In 2015, Iowa State researchers Caglar Yildirim and Ana-Paula Correia published the Nomophobia Questionnaire, a 20-item scale with four dimensions: not being able to communicate, losing connectedness, not being able to access information, and giving up convenience.

Nomophobia is not in the DSM-5 or ICD-11. Some researchers have proposed treating it as a specific phobia, but that remains a proposal.

Why it happens

Your phone isn’t one thing. It’s your map, wallet, camera, boarding pass, alarm, work inbox and every person you love, all in one piece of glass. Losing it for an hour really does cut you off from a lot, so some unease is rational.

It tips into nomophobia when the unease outruns the actual risk. The urge to check becomes a way to calm yourself, and every check teaches your brain that being without the phone is a problem to fix. Unpredictable rewards, like that one message you were waiting for, make the checking stickier.

It’s common. In one 2026 survey of about 1,000 US adults, roughly 3 in 4 said they feel uneasy leaving their phone at home. That’s a self-report survey, so treat it as an estimate.

How to tell if it’s you

• You feel a jolt of panic at 10% battery.
• You turn the car around for your phone even when you’ll be back in an hour.
• You check for signal the moment you walk into a building.
• You’ve felt it buzz when it didn’t, which is called phantom vibration syndrome.

What helps

Practise short, planned separations. Leave the phone at home for a ten-minute walk, then thirty. Anxiety drops when the feared outcome keeps not happening.

Remove the real risks. Carry a small battery pack, write two emergency numbers on paper and save offline maps. A lot of the fear is practical and has practical fixes.

Separate the phone from the feed. Often what you want is less scrolling, not no phone. An app blocker like Bricked can turn just the feed apps to brick and leave the rest of the phone working.

Notice what you didn’t miss. After a phone-free stretch, check what actually happened. Usually nothing urgent, which is the whole idea behind JOMO.

If anxiety about being without your phone is seriously affecting your work, sleep or relationships, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional.