Forget the "Crackberry": Stanford students are addicted to their iPhones

Years ago, when the Blackberry started gaining traction among business users, people found themselves using the device so much that the nickname "Crackberry" was invented to describe how addicting the device was. According to a recent survey of 200 Stanford University students, the iPhone is just as addictive as the Blackberry, if not more so. Nearly a third of Stanford students surveyed worried about becoming addicted to their iPhones, while more than a third had heard complaints they were using the devices too much.

The survey gives some insight into why students found their iPhones so addicting: 74 percent of students surveyed said they 'felt cool" when they got an iPhone, but more importantly, a quarter of surveyed students said their iPhones felt like "an extension of their brain or their being."

I can definitely vouch for the addictive nature of the iPhone. I use my iPhone for almost everything these days, and it's fundamentally changed the way I do a lot of things. When I'm out and about and have a question about some bit of trivia, Wikipedia is only a few taps away. When I'm comparison shopping in a store, Amazon's product reviews can tell me in a few seconds whether what I'm looking at is a worthwhile purchase. And I've definitely gotten complaints that I use my iPhone too much from both my wife and a couple of my friends.

Funnily enough, though, the friend who was most apt to complain about my iPhone usage stopped complaining about it altogether once she got an iPhone of her own -- within a few days of using her iPhone, she admitted that she finally understood why I used mine so much.

How about you? Do you find the iPhone as addicting as the Stanford students? Let us know in the poll below or in the comments.

[Via Ars Technica]