Objectives:Recently, adolescent use of smartphones has dramatically increased. Consequently, smartphone addiction has emerged as a serious social problem. Researches on internet and cellular phone addiction have reported correlation between such add...
Objectives:Recently, adolescent use of smartphones has dramatically increased. Consequently, smartphone addiction has emerged as a serious social problem. Researches on internet and cellular phone addiction have reported correlation between such addictions and symptoms such as depression and social anxiety. However, there have only been limited studies on the relationship between smartphone use, depression and social anxiety.
Methods:Subjects involved in this study are 57 high school students and 16 patients who are diagnosed with depressive disorder in a university hospital and are currently being treated on visitation basis. In order to measure smartphone addiction, this research used Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale(SAPS) developed by Korea National Information Society Agency in 2011. In order to measure depression and social anxiety, Beck Depression Inventory(BDI) and Fear of Negative Evaluation(KFNE) were used respectively.
Results:The prevalence of smartphone addiction was 24.7%. The BDI and KFNE scores for the smartphone-addicted group were significantly higher than subjects who are not addicted to smartphone use. The percentage of women in the smartphone-addicted group was meaningfully higher than that in the non-addicted group. Although there was an overall meaningful correlation between smartphone addiction, BDI and KFNE, when considered in the context of gender, only females showed a meaningful correlation between smartphone addiction, BDI, and KFNE.
Conclusion:Depression and social anxiety are meaningfully correlated to smartphone addiction. Women have shown a strong correlation between social anxiety and smartphone addiction. This may suggest that women tend to cope with their emotional problems caused by their interpersonal relationships through use of information technologies that enable them to access the virtual world. This research also shows that it may be beneficial to treat patients with both smartphone addiction and depression, social anxiety on an individualized basis.