SNP’s word of the day: Nomophobia

Illustration by Lewis Mirrett
Illustration by Lewis Mirrett

Word: Nomophobia

Meaning: The fear of losing one’s mobile phone.

Usage: “If you know the panicked and disconnected feeling of leaving your mobile phone at home, you might be one of the many suffering from nomophobia.” — Mashable.com

You should know it because: If you don’t frantically strip-search yourself 5 times a day like your phone’s a bomb and you’re the TSA, you’re lying. I don’t like liars. Bye.

For the rest of us, there’s a new condition—nomophobia—that addresses the mescaline-withdrawal panic we feel whenever our phones are whereabouts unknown. As someone who really does lose everything not connected by cartilage and flesh to my body, I probably have this worse than others. Did you know one time I left my BlackBerry in a cab on my own birthday? It turns out the cure for nomophobia is more drinking.

While this isn’t a real disorder because everyone has it, even you, liars, it’s certainly an acute concern. What are we really quivery-anxious over? That we’ll miss an important tweet about the Raf for Dior rumours? That without our Instagram photos we won’t remember what we’re currently wearing? Or that we’ll lose touch with our filtered reality and have to feel blindly for connections in the sudden dark? Okay, have a good weekend!

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