KACHARAGADLA

Nomophobia, the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, is on the rise Sapna K, a 19-year-old history student, would log onto social networking sites from her smartphone in between classes. Slowly, her need to check her phone turned into a craving. Did someone comment on her Facebook post? Did she miss out on a WhatsApp message? Why hadn't her phone buzzed in the past hour or so? She would sleep with the phone under her pillow and check her messages in the middle of the night. Her obsessive attachment to the phone began to interfere with her daily chores and mental peace. "One day she left her phone at a friend's party. She felt anxious the entire time that she reached home and insisted that her father immediately walk back to the friend's house to pick it up," says Manoj Kumar Sharma, additional professor (department of clinical psychology) at Bengaluru's NIMHANS. He is, at the moment, taking care of at least 60 cases in which the patient is sufferin