The purpose of this study was to investigate smartphone overuse influenced by sensation seeking and social anxiety among middle school students. Participants were 300 adolescents aged from 14 to 16. They were recruited from two middle schools in Buche...
The purpose of this study was to investigate smartphone overuse influenced by sensation seeking and social anxiety among middle school students. Participants were 300 adolescents aged from 14 to 16. They were recruited from two middle schools in Bucheon-si. The Sensation Seeking Scale (Chung Ock-Boon, Lim Jung-Ha, Chung, Soon-Hwa, Cho, Yoon-Ju, 2010) was used to assess sensation seeking. The Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A: LaGreca, 1998) was used to assess social anxiety. The Smartphone Addiction Scale for young (National Information Society Agency; NIS, 2011) was used to measure smartphone overuse.
Data were analyzed using Cronbach`s alpha, frequencies, percentiles, means, standard deviations, t-tests, two-way ANOVAs, Pearson`s correlations and standard multiple regression analyses.
The major findings were as follow:
First, there were differences in smartphone use by adolescents according to gender. Girls recorded higher means in the duration and time of smartphone usage than boys. While girls frequently used such services as SNS, music appreciation, and Internet shopping, boys did games, which confirms that girls use more services on a smartphone than boys.
Second, there were significant differences in smartphone overuse by adolescents according to gender and grade. The degree of smartphone overuse was significantly higher in girls than boys and in seventh graders than eighth graders.
Third, there were positive correlations between sensation seeking and social anxiety among adolescents and also between some of their subfactors, which suggests that adolescents grow more and more afraid of negative judgments by others as they seek after new and devious experiences. Adolescents' sensation seeking and some of its subfactors had positive correlations with their smartphone overuse. As they pursued new and devious experiences, their sensation seeking had positive correlations with smartphone overuse and its subfactors. Social anxiety and its subfactors also had positive correlations with smartphone overuse. Smartphone overuse and its subfactors were positively correlated with overall social anxiety and its subfactors including fear for a negative judgment, avoidance and anxiety about a new situation, and avoidance and anxiety about a general situation.
Finally, female adolescents with a high level of social anxiety and sensation seeking tended to exhibit a high degree of smartphone overuse. When each subfactor was considered, it was found that female adolescents that had fear for a negative judgment and avoidance and anxiety about a new situation and sought after devious experiences tended to undergo a high degree of difficulty with daily life. When they had great fear for a negative judgment and sought after devious experiences more and thrills and adventures less, they tended to show a high level of orientation toward a virtual world. Female adolescents that sought after devious experiences a lot and had great fear for a negative judgment tended to display a high degree of withdrawal. Finally, when they had great fear for a negative judgment and great avoidance and anxiety about a new situation and sought after devious experiences a lot, they tended to show a high level of tolerance.