Mobile phone have now found their way into every one. It's distribution rate in Korea is over 100% comparing with estimated population of 48,875,000 in 2010. We are enjoying its cool services. However, there have been a few scientific reports that su...
Mobile phone have now found their way into every one. It's distribution rate in Korea is over 100% comparing with estimated population of 48,875,000 in 2010. We are enjoying its cool services. However, there have been a few scientific reports that suggest heavy use of mobile phone can cause physical and psychological problems: such as headaches, insomnia, fatigue, mental depression, cognitive disorder, compulsive behavior. It is said that especially, youngsters are more vulnerable to these symptoms.
With those reasons, It is needed to find out the mobile phone related behaviors of teenagers including the 'degree' and 'types' of mobile phone addiction in general, and other factors affecting these behaviors in specific. Thus, three major research questions are made as follows:
First, Is there any difference in mobile phone addiction by individual characteristics? That is, 'gender', 'school record', and 'the type of using mobile phone' plays for in addiction? Secondly, Does the psychological factors such as 'loneliness', 'self-control', and 'self-efficacy' affect mobile phone addiction? Thirdly, Is there any relation between mobile phone addiction and social factors, such as 'parent-child communication', 'the relationship with friends', and 'economic status of family'?
The data were collected by questionnaire survey in class room situation at the
Junior high school in Daegu Korea. Respondents were the 342 students(female: 171 male: 171) attending in the 8th and 9th grade. All data were processed and analyzed by SPSS WIN 12.0.
Before analyzing the data for research questions of this study, the concept of addiction was operationally defined into 2 different concepts. one is the degree of addiction and the other is the type of addiction. For this purpose the data were processed by factor analysis with relevant variables(see, attached questionnaire, 20 items in Question No. 20). The study have found 3 factors in types of addiction. It shows the 'psychological dependency', 'psychological attachment', and the tendency of 'following new things.' Those 3 types of addiction could be interpreted as serious, modest and minor type of addiction, respectively.
The findings for the first research question are as follows. Girls do have more tendency in degree of addiction than boys do. However, it is expected that 'school record' is not relevant to mobile phone addiction in degree and in quality(the type of addiction) too. 'Functional' usage of phone does not related to the degree of addiction. However, 'for self-display' and 'for fun' are significantly related to the degree of addiction. In another words, if one use mobile phone for functional purpose, there is less possibility of being addicted in terms of the degree(see, Table 5-11).
The findings for the second research question are as follows. 'Loneliness' and 'self-control', 2 variables shows no significant effect both on the degree of addiction and the type of addiction. But 'Self-efficacy' has significant effect on the type of addiction(see, Table 5-12).
The findings for the third research question are as follows. 'Parent-child communication', and 'the relationship with friends' have significant effect on the degree of addiction, and the type of addiction. It tells us that the better 'relationship with parents' tend to reduce the degree of addiction(because, the figure in the table has minus sign). On the contrary, the better ‘relationship with friends’ tend to increase the degree of addiction. The higher 'Economic status of family' tend to increase the degree of addiction(see, Table 5-13).
As a result, a close relationship with parents works positively to prevent mobile phone addiction, while a close relationship with friends works negatively thus, promotes mobile phone addiction. Probably, these facts itself needed to be studied in more detail as an object of future study. The question is what they do with mobile phone, and what they talk about with friends: put it into an another words, the further study should focus on the actual contents of mobile communication of the school kids.