Married to Blackberry, Divorced from family.......

8 Oct 2009, 0557 hrs IST, Ravi Teja Sharma, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: Head bowed, hands together, thumbs going... the typical mannerisms of an inveterate smartphone user— whether in the boardroom or the bedroom — has now made an entry into the Urban Dictionary: The BlackBerry Prayer. That prayer is getting answered, and increasingly, the results are disastrous. The device — be it the BlackBerry, the iPhone or just about any other smartphone — that promised a world of convenience and freedom to millions of busy professionals is now threatening to make their relationships unravel as users increasingly get addicted to their 24x7 connectivity. Psychologists and social scientists that ET spoke to for this story said smartphone-triggered divorces are on the rise, especially in the last one year. Smartphone sales were up 27% this year so far over the corresponding period in 2008, and is slated to jump 30-35% in 2010, says Gartner. The complainants in these cases are mostly women who feel their husbands are busy checking mails or updating their Facebook status or tweeting, completely oblivious to the family at the dinner table. They start the day heads bowed checking messages, never mind the kids waiting in vain for the morning wish or the wife the peck on the cheek. “This is a recent phenomenon,” says senior advocate Geeta Luthra, a specialist in marital separation cases. “A year ago, no one ever came to me saying ‘my husband doesn’t talk to me because he is always on the phone’. They don’t suspect their husbands of infidelity. But they surely blame the phone for cracking their relationships,” she says. Kiran (name changed) recently filed for divorce from her CEO husband, and deposed in the court, that her husband’s smartphone addiction was the most important reason. “That device is like his wife,” she said in court. Delhi-based psychologist Sanjay Chugh says this is a case of classical dependence. “Such people want to know if they have been contacted in the last few minutes, or in some cases, even in the last few seconds. If they find there has been no contact, there is a tinge of disappointment and anxiety,” he says. Smartphones exploded in the Indian market around five years ago, with the launch of Canadian firm RIM’s BlackBerry. A horde of similar products followed, mostly notably Apple’s popular iPhone. Research firm Ascendia estimates that the smartphone market in India stood at around 5 million units in 2008. Gartner expects such devices to have a 4-4.5% share in total mobile phone sales in India in 2009. In developed markets, the addictive nature of smartphones have led to the BlackBerry, the most popular of such devices, being dubbed the Crackberry, a reference to crack cocaine. In fact, the internet is replete with personal accounts of smartphone addiction and ways to overcome it, a la quitting cigarettes. In the US, President Obama himself is said to be a compulsive BlackBerry user, so much so that the Secret Service had to amend rules to let the man pursue his passion. RIM declined to divulge its sales figures for India, but a rival phone maker says of the 90 million phones in use in the country today, some 2% (around 180,000) are high-end phones. According to Comscore, which tracks social networking trends worldwide, India is among the fastest-growing markets in this area. The total internet audience in the country in August 2009 was 35,432,000, up 17% on year-ago levels. Social networking audience in the same period grew 21% to 22,259,000. The number of Facebook users grew 220% to 81,54,000, while those for Orkut grew 34% to 152,76,000. Twitter users grew 2435% to 1,098,000. Not all these people access social networking sites using cellphones, but the numbers clearly indicate a surge in usage. Sure, for every Crackberry addict, there are three who vouch how smartphones have made their lives easier. For many senior executives, using the phone for texting, social networking and checking emails, is also a stressbuster besides a corporate companion. “Such people find this a way to relax after a tiring day at work,” says Dr Harish Shetty, social psychiatrist with Mumbai-based Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital. “But eventually, these can become bigger issues as stress points emerge leading to marital disharmony,” adds Dr Sandeep Vohra, senior consultant psychiatrist at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital. Psychiatrists say Crackberry addicts suffer from wanting to “broadcast to the world” all the time. “This gives them the feeling of one-upmanship, especially if they get comments,” says Mr Chugh. “What’s more, such people never agree they are addicted. They have a valid rationale — that they are working.” Dr Shetty points out that if there is an addiction, there will be a remedy. So, many corporate families are trying to take assertive action, by coming together, once the user realises his problem (addiction). “Kids are the best to regulate the use of the BlackBerry,” he says, citing a case where the family decided that the father, once he reached home, would deposit his phone with the kids, who will then regulate its use during the evening. And for those already separated, they have the phone for company...... (from Economic Times)