Americans have a serious addiction with their mobile devices.

Sixty-two percent of respondents in one poll said they would prefer to go a week without chocolate than lose their phone for just one day.

Four in 10 Americans said they would rather lose their voice for a day than lose their phone for 24 hours.

This year, adults are expected to spend an average of 3 hours, 35 minutes per day on mobile devices, an annual increase of more than 11 minutes.

By 2019, mobile devices will surpass TV as the medium that attracts the most time in our nation.

A study by the global tech protection and support company Asurion found that the average person struggles to go little more than 10 minutes without checking their phone. And of the 2,000 people surveyed, one in 10 check their phones on average once every four minutes.

Another researcher says smartphones have become the remote control to our lives and many people will go to extreme lengths to keep their device. Those with a social media addiction are more anxious and nervous and missing a text message is like a personal tragedy to them.

The concerns are global.

Australian police are dealing with a selfie craze. In Wedding Cake Rock, one of Sydney’s most popular tourist spots, tourists are risking their lives by climbing a fence to get to a scenic overlook in order to take that perfect photo to post on Instagram.

The physical and psychological effects can be found across all age groups.

Like teens and adults, children are addicted to mobile phones. Scientists have discovered that just two minutes of a phone call can alter the electoral activity of the kid’s brain for up to an hour.

The disturbed brain activity could impair children’s learning ability and other behavioral problems.

In Great Britain, parents were concerned that children’s’ smartphone addiction was affecting their sleep and that time spent online was lowering a child’s self-esteem.

An article last week in London’s Daily Telegraph included a warning from Dr. Jon Goldin, vice chairman of the Royal College of Psychologists, which assesses the damage caused by children spending too much time online.

He said parents should be given official warning not to give their children smartphones before they reach secondary school and that children under 11 should be restricted to two hours a day on social media.

Goldin called on social media giants Facebook and Twitter to make it more difficult for young people to lie about their age and create accounts before they turn 13.

Therapist Hilarie Cash, a co-founder of the reSTART Internet and technology addiction program in Washington state, said cellphones are powerful computers that gives us constant information, but as with any drug over time, overuse can be destructive, such as isolating us from the world around us.

She offers some simple tips on weaning yourself from the addiction, including:

• Creating boundaries, such as putting your phone on silent and stopping alert notifications;

• Not sleeping with your phone;

• Going on a full detox for a weekend by putting the phone away on a Friday and not picking it up until Sunday.

Cash says this will give your brain a chance to normalize, and get back into the pace of normal life.

If there are problems setting these boundaries, she recommends additional therapy.

Sarah Manavis, digital writer for the New Statesman, a British political and cultural magazine, says the phone has become a living, breathing extension of the right hand for many.

There’s a mountain of evidence to back up that statement, and it’s growing every day.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com