Consequences Associated with Smartphone Use

Are you a smartphone user? Do you ever think about the mental and physical consequences that may come along with using your phone?? Have you done anything about it? As you may have heard about or read about in the past, there are a variety of mental and physical consequences that have been associated and connected with smartphone use in people of all ages. Not just with teenagers, but also with children and adults. Read this blog to learn more...

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Introduction

The consequences associated with smartphone use have been a recently studied phenomenon, due to the incredible speed at which smartphone use is increasing. Researchers, parents, educators, etc. are raising concerns over how phone usage might affect the user. You may have even raised concerns yourself in the past...it may even be the reason you came across this blog.

Mental Health Consequences: What the Research Says

In a 2018 study involving online questionnaires completed by college students, researchers concluded that addictive behavior is associated with negative psychological characteristics (Jasso-Medrano & Lopez-Rosales, 2018). Problematic mobile phone use is also associated with impaired physiological well-being, impaired parent and school relationships, and behavioral problems. These rates increase with age and decrease with the educational level of parents (Roser, et al., 2016). A third study highlighted the mental costs associated with smartphone notifications and provided recommendations to improve the well-being of users.

Mental health is just as important as physical health, so why aren’t more people concerned with their smartphone use and the negative effects that come along with overuse? First, it can be harder for one to track their mental health, because it is not as tangible as a concept as physical health. Second, most people are simply unaware of these findings. It is much easier to be a passive user of these addictive devices, rather than an informed questioner who knows the daunting facts. Several studies prove that, at any age, it is extremely important that one is aware of their level of addiction to social media and screen time. The good news is that monitoring use has become convenient with one of the recent iOS updates on the iPhone. In addition, there are even settings that allow one to lock certain applications, to ensure that they are not tempted to use. If you are looking for ways to break your scrolling habits and lesson your daily screen time, you may want to check these features out.

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Smartphone Use and Sleep Quality

Smartphone use has also been linked to sleep quality. As most people know, a healthy mental state requires adequate nightly sleep. Smartphone use has the ability to hinder and/or inhibit the quality of sleep that users are getting. Therefore, with limited sleep, mental health states decrease. In one study, 319 university students were divided into three groups: a smartphone non-user group (22.3%), a low smartphone use group (37.9%), and a high smartphone use group (39.8%). They were then all evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Smartphone Addiction Scale (Demirci, et al., 2015). The findings revealed that the Smartphone Addiction scores that came from females were higher than the scores of males (Demirci, et al., 2015). Additionally, depression, anxiety, and daytime dysfunction scores were higher in the high smartphone use group (Demirci, et al., 2015). Lastly, there were positive correlations between the Smartphone Addiction Scale scores and depression levels, anxiety levels, and sleep quality scores (Demirci, et al., 2015).

In another study, performed in 2013, 372 college students from two different universities were asked about their cell phone use during sleep and sleep quality (Dowdell & Clayton, 2019). They were asked things like hours slept on school nights and weekends and the location of their cell phones during their sleep (Dowdell & Clayton, 2019). The results explained that 25.5% of the sample reported sleep texting behavior along with poor sleep quality and the cell phone affecting their sleep (Dowdell & Clayton, 2019). Students that sleep text were more likely to report sleep interruption, to place their phone in bed with them, to have no memory of texting or what they texted (Dowdell & Clayton, 2019).

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Physical Health Consequences: What the Research Says

Aside from mental consequences, including negative associations on sleep quality, smartphone use has also been found to hinder the physical qualities and abilities of individuals. One meta-analysis explored the mental and physical health impact of addiction and abuse of smartphone usage among adolescents, specifically in the Indian population (Davey & Davey, 2014). Using the key search phrases “Smartphone addiction” and “Indian adolescents”, various studies were found across a variety of online web bases (Davey & Davey, 2014). The results stated that the smartphone addiction magnitude in India ranged from 39% to 44%. In conclusion, it was found that smartphone addiction in Indian adolescents can interfere with interpersonal skills, lead to health risks, and harm the psychology of the brain (Davey & Davey, 2014). Now that you’re done reading...get off your phone and get outside!

Ted Talk: Are you addicted to your smartphone?

References

Davey S., & Davey, A. (2014). Assessment of smartphone addiction in adolescents: A mixed

method study by systematic-review and meta-analysis approach. International Journal of

Preventive Medicine, 5(12), 1500-1511. doi: 10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_130_19.

Demirci, K., Akgonul, M., & Akpinar, A. (2015). Relationship of smartphone use severity with

sleep quality, depression, and anxiety in university students. Journal of Behavioral

Addictions, 4(2), 85-92. doi: 10.1556/2006.4.2015.010.

Dowdell, E. B., & Clayton, B. Q. (2019). Interrupted sleep: College students sleeping with

technology. Journal of American College Health, 67(7), 640-646. doi:

10.1080/07448481.2018.1499655.

Jasso-Medrano, J., and Lopez-Rosales, F. (2018). Measuring the relationship between

social media use and addictive behavior and depression and suicide ideation among

university students. Computers in Human Behavior, 87, 183-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.05.003.

Roser, K., Schoeni, A., Foerster, M., & Roosli, M. (2016). Problematic mobile phone use of

Swiss adolescents: Is it linked with mental health or behavior? International Journal of

Public Health, 61(3), 307-315. doi: 10.1007/s00038-015-0751-2.