Mobile phone use and stress, sleep disturbances, and symptoms of depression among young adults - a prospective cohort study

By Sara Thomée, A. Härenstam, M. Hagberg. BMC Public Health, 2011

1,254 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundBecause of the quick development and widespread use of mobile phones, and their vast effect on communication and interactions, it is important to study possible negative health effects of mobile phone exposure. The overall aim of this study was to investigate whether there are associations between psychosocial aspects of mobile phone use and mental health symptoms in a prospective cohort of young adults.MethodsThe study group consisted of young adults 20-24 years old (n = 4156), who responded to a questionnaire at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Mobile phone exposure variables included frequency of use, but also more qualitative variables: demands on availability, perceived stressfulness of accessibility, being awakened at night by the mobile phone, and personal overuse of the mobile phone. Mental health outcomes included current stress, sleep disorders, and symptoms of depression. Prevalence ratios (PRs) were calculated for cross-sectional and prospective associations between exposure variables and mental health outcomes for men and women separately.ResultsThere were cross-sectional associations between high compared to low mobile phone use and stress, sleep disturbances, and symptoms of depression for the men and women. When excluding respondents reporting mental health symptoms at baseline, high mobile phone use was associated with sleep disturbances and symptoms of depression for the men and symptoms of depression for the women at 1-year follow-up. All qualitative variables had cross-sectional associations with mental health outcomes. In prospective analysis, overuse was associated with stress and sleep disturbances for women, and high accessibility stress was associated with stress, sleep disturbances, and symptoms of depression for both men and women.ConclusionsHigh frequency of mobile phone use at baseline was a risk factor for mental health outcomes at 1-year follow-up among the young adults. The risk for reporting mental health symptoms at follow-up was greatest among those who had perceived accessibility via mobile phones to be stressful. Public health prevention strategies focusing on attitudes could include information and advice, helping young adults to set limits for their own and others' accessibility.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Biophysics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/294e3d65ad09dc4696e7c5b020a5f0a1def40c97

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Citations in the corpus

Problematic Use of the Mobile Phone: A Literature Review and a Pathways Model (2012, background): “…the growing number of studies emphasizing that depressive symptoms frequently co-occur with dysfunctional or excessive use of the mobile phone [6] [9] [16] [17] [19] and by the fact that a wide range of problematic and addictive behaviors serves as a short-term strategy to deal with unpleasant…”
Out of sight is not out of mind: The impact of restricting wireless mobile device use on anxiety levels among low, moderate and high users (2014, background): “Thomée, Härenstam, and Hagberg (2011) examined the same concept along with other elements such as mental overload, disturbed sleep, and never feeling free as consequences of high mobile phone use.”
Students’ Wellbeing, Fear of Missing out, and Social Media Engagement for Leisure in Higher Education Learning Environments (2016, neutral): “In the same vein, Thomée et al. (2011) investigated possible associations between psychosocial aspects of mobile phone use and mental health symptoms in a prospective cohort of young adults.”
Psychological Distress, Emotion Dysregulation, and Coping Behaviour: a Theoretical Perspective of Problematic Smartphone Use (2020, background): “…support (Herrero et al. 2019), family conflict (Mahapatra 2019), sleep disturbance and poor sleep quality (Demirci et al. 2015; Lemola et al. 2015; Thomée et al. 2011), low grade point average and less effective learning styles among university students (Lepp et al. 2015; Rozgonjuk et al. 2018;…”
Stress Recognition Using Wearable Sensors and Mobile Phones (2013, background): “At the same time, the advance of mobile technologies can lead addictive behaviors and as some studies have shown, may pose risks on stress, sleep and mental health [12].”
Identifying Objective Physiological Markers and Modifiable Behaviors for Self-Reported Stress and Mental Health Status Using Wearable Sensors and Mobile Phones: Observational Study (2018, background): “…and sleep time (estimated for each individual from actigraphy and daily sleep diaries) as physiological responses, such as SC and ACC during daytime and sleep time have different meanings [44] and late night phone and exercise activities could relate to self-reported stress and mental health [45].”
Mobile Phone Sensor Correlates of Depressive Symptom Severity in Daily-Life Behavior: An Exploratory Study (2015, background): “previous studies that have found a correlation between mobile phone use and some depressive symptoms [23,24].”
Problematic smartphone use: A conceptual overview and systematic review of relations with anxiety and depression psychopathology. (2017, background): “Depression Ten studies assessed symptoms of depression (Augner and Hacker, 2012; Demirci et al., 2015; Guzeller and Cosguner, 2012; Ha et al., 2008; Harwood et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2015a; Lu et al., 2011; Smetaniuk, 2014; Thomée et al., 2011; Yen et al., 2009).”
Mobile phone addiction levels and negative emotions among Chinese young adults: The mediating role of interpersonal problems (2016, background): “…level has been linked to interpersonal problems (Liu & Kuo, 2007; Park, Kim, & Lee, 2014; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2013) and negative emotions such as depression (Thomée et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2014; Yen et al., 2009) and anxiety (Beranuy et al., 2009; Hong et al., 2012; Yen et al., 2009).”