MANILA, Philippines — I remember being amused at my best friend for showing some classic behavior of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) several years ago. Apparently it’s something he suspected he had for years and confirmed when he finally went to a psychiatrist.

All these years and I never really noticed until he pointed it out to me. He used to do things like repeatedly opening and closing the door of his car before getting in or fumbling while dialing on the telephone and having to redial several times.

He used to tell me that everyone has some obsessive compulsions but that does not necessarily mean you have OCD. I keep remembering that because through the years I’ve developed some obsessive compulsions myself, manifesting themselves in gadgets. Hopefully this isn’t a sign that I have OCD myself.

I’m not really sure anymore when it started but I’m pretty sure it started with the PC. I guess it’s a strange urge to keep my PC “clean” that got me started having to constantly delete unneeded cookies, browser history, the recent documents tab, and even using the disk cleanup application of Windows.

It’s a strange thing because my desktop icons are in a bit of disarray and some of my files aren’t organized well so it isn’t really a neatness thing. It’s just a restless urge!

Then the compulsion transferred to my cell phone even back when I was using Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones. My most common target in those phones was the call history. I always kept that clear so after I called someone or got a call; I deleted it from the history.

I also used to have this thing about “holes” in the SIM card memory that I used to do with some of my old phones. I used to mirror the contacts I had on the phone memory with the SIM. When I deleted a contact, it would leave a “hole” in the SIM card.

By this I mean the order in which the contacts are stored would have a gap. Try typing a number followed by the symbol # and you’ll get a phone number. “Holes” in the SIM would come up as an error since there used to be something there but got deleted. I always used to delete my SIM contacts and copy the contacts from the phone to fill those holes.

Enter the Smartphone. Smartphones are so handy that a lot of the things I usually use the PC for. I can do on my phone. I use my Android phone to browse the internet, send and receive mail and check my Facebook and Twitter. Since my phone is so much like a PC, I find myself having similar obsessive compulsions.

The main target for my phone is the applications. My apps are often on the receiving end of the “Clear Data” and “Clear Cache” buttons. I even have the app called History Eraser to help me clear the cache on a regular basis.

Applications that grow in size quickly over time like Twitter and Facebook are my main targets. I’ve learned to show some restraint when deleting the data from games like Angry Birds since that deletes your progress.

Who knows how our gadgets will evolve because of technology in the future? Whatever happens, I can probably predict that I’ll develop some kind of similar obsessive compulsions for them too!