Your Cell Phone Could Say You're Hopeless By Ed Susman

Oh, those cellular phones. Everyone seems to have one, and researchers say that if you have a cellular phone and it doesn't ring very often, you might have a deep-seated psychological problem.

In Finland, where more than half the adult population carries a cell phone, mental-health investigators wondered if the cell-phone usage could tell them something about a person's inner self.

Indeed, it turns out that Finns who get only one or two calls a day on their cell phone are likely to be suffering from hopelessness, a form of mental illness that correlates highly with suicide attempts, depression and increased mortality among people with heart disease and other chronic illnesses.

"The number of cellular telephone calls received is a new way to estimate social contacts," said Kaisa Haatainen, a nurse researcher at Kuopio University Hospital.

The Finnish researchers decided to see if the cell phone could be a marker for psychological problems, specifically focusing on hopelessness. "Insufficient social contact is associated with hopelessness," Haatainen said. "Cellular phones make social contacts possible and easy without face-to-face contact."

She reported her findings in May at the 154th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New Orleans.

In pursuing the study, Haatainen and her co-researchers began a large survey of psychosocial risk factors among Finnish adults in 1999. A total of 1,722 subjects responded to the survey -- 1,181 of whom carried cell phones. The subjects participated in one measurement of hopelessness -- a standard psychological test known as the Beck Hopelessness Scale.

A powerful predictor of eventual suicide, the Beck Hopelessness Scale examines an individual's thoughts and beliefs about the future. A score of 9 or more on the scale indicated that the subject was suffering from at least moderate hopelessness, Haatainen said. She said 193 people reached this level, about 11 percent of the people surveyed -- and she determined that people who scored highest on scales of hopelessness received the fewest phones calls per day.

The correlation between cellular phone calls received and a relevant score on the Beck scale was highest among women, Haatainen said. About 14 percent of the women in the survey who received few cellular calls would be suffering from hopelessness, compared with about 6 percent of women who received a lot of calls.

"That means," Haatainen said, "that women who receive few calls have double the risk of scoring high on the Beck test." She said that among men, 15 percent of those who received few cellular calls scored high on the hopelessness test compared with about 8 percent of men who got a lot of calls each day. That translated to about a 70 percent greater risk of high hopelessness scores, Haatainen said.

She said that the researchers adjusted their sample to include such factors as sex, age, marital status, education, work ability, place of residence, economic status, the subject's physical health and alcohol intake, and still found a significant correlation between phone calls received and hopelessness.

Ed Susman is a free-lance writer who lives in West Palm Beach, Fla.

(c) 2001, Ed Susman, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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BULL POOP!!!! I no longer even have a cell phone.(we never used it...and paid 35.00 a month to have it!) and the home phone is no longer answered unless I have business or know someone is going to call. we are so sick of the solicitors...and I am not paying another fee to blocks and caller ID...It is cheaper to turn off the ringers. somedays I have no outside contact..and you know what...I am just fine the next day!

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001

Answers

Sweetie and I describe ourselves as "non-social," pointing out that it does not mean we are anti-social. We grow more eccentric as we grow older and we find we do not conform to the accepted norm, therefore have relatively few friends. I would rather have a handful of implicitly trusted friends who don't care if there's a bit of, okay, more than a bit of cat hair around and who smile when they see my toilet planter on the front yard (it has begonias in it now). I just don't understand people who have innumerable friends, most of whom they don't really like, decorate themselveas and their houses and yards to suit their friends, are consumed by social obligations and don't have time to read a book or grow a (messy) tomato plant. They are mere collectors of people, not experienced connoisseurs of humankind.

Sniff.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001

Old Git, I think you're right. And you can bump that Sniff up to a Snort.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001

I don't own a cell phone or a beeper, nor do I aspire to a job where I'm required to have either one. I wonder what those shrinks would think of me? I do admit to borrowing a TRAC phone (cell phone used with a phone card) while I'm traveling to and from Michigan because of those long, vacant stretches of freeway between major towns, but I haven't had to use it so far. I used to have a CB in my Vega when I was in my 20s. How's that for being social (?)

OG, I have hot and cold running company around the opening of the state fair and also right before Christmas. I don't mind the state fair company . . . they are mainly farm families of modest means, some shirt-tail relations. I'm glad to help out with a place to stay or shower or a place to park a second car. Other than that, it's pretty quiet around here. I need my peace! (:

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001