But for Gao Qi, a 29-year-old man living in Beijing, smartphones are more of a headache than useful tools. As the main organizer of Beijing fans of an Argentinean football team, Gao's club gathered together almost once every week, but now he doesn't want to participate any more.

"In the past, the meetings were a lot of fun," said Gao. "We met new friends here and played games or cards. But now that everybody carries a smartphone, the atmosphere has changed a lot."

Gao revealed that many people in the parties, no matter what they were doing, were always checking messages and couldn't concentrate. "It is really annoying and impolite, but they don't care and take it for granted."

Xiao Linqiu, a woman living in Shanghai, echoed Gao's frustration. Xiao likes to have dinner with friends, but almost every time there are one or two people at the table who don't talk with anybody and stare at their phones instead. "I think it is basic etiquette not to do that. It seems they don't need anything in the whole world but that phone," Xiao said. "I doubt whether they still have the ability to communicate with people face to face."

Quest for liberation

"I really want to change this harmful habit. I cannot get my hands away from the smartphone and I cannot concentrate on my work at all," said a netizen known as Sunflower, who asked other netizens for methods to control the habit. But the replies elicited were not optimistic. Many said that their addictions were more severe. One even said that he had to get up at midnight every day to check the news on his phone.

Ma Meiying, a professor of sociology at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, thinks the reason for smartphone addiction lies mostly in the immense pressure and spiritual emptiness of modern life. "When people live under great pressure and there are not many channels for release, smartphones are the choice to relax and kill time."

Ma regards smartphone addiction as an extension of Internet addiction. "It can be more severe as the phone is much easier to carry," he said. "The user should have a stronger mind to control this. Smartphone producers should notify users of the harms of overuse as well."