The invisible addiction: Cell-phone activities and addiction among male and female college students

By James A. Roberts, Luc Honore Petnji Yaya, C. Manolis. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2014

661 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background and aims: The primary objective of the present study was to investigate which cell-phone activities are associated with cell-phone addiction. No research to date has studied the full-range of cell-phone activities, and their relationship to cell-phone addiction, across male and female cell-phone users. Methods: College undergraduates (N = 164) participated in an online survey. Participants completed the questionnaire as part of their class requirements. The questionnaire took 10 and 15 minutes to complete and contained a measure of cell-phone addiction and questions that asked how much time participants spent daily on 24 cell-phone activities. Results: Findings revealed cell-phone activities that are associated significantly with cell-phone addiction (e.g., Instagram, Pinterest), as well as activities that one might logically assume would be associated with this form of addiction but are not (e.g., Internet use and Gaming). Cell-phone activities that drive cell-phone addiction (CPA) were found to vary considerably across male and female cell-phone users. Although a strong social component drove CPA for both males and females, the specific activities associated with CPA differed markedly. Conclusions: CPA amongst the total sample is largely driven by a desire to connect socially. The activities found to be associated with CPA, however, differed across the sexes. As the functionality of cell-phones continues to expand, addiction to this seemingly indispensable piece of technology becomes an increasingly realistic possibility. Future research must identify the activities that push cell-phone use beyond its “;tipping point” where it crosses the line from a helpful tool to one that undermines our personal well-being and that of others.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ead5e07b8bbd108dc05881e90362a2012b25a435

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Citations in the corpus

Cell-Phone Addiction: A Review (2016, background): “From this perspective, the cell phone offers activities that can lead to problematic use (3, 27).”
I need my smartphone: A hierarchical model of personality and cell-phone addiction (2015, methodology): “Roberts et al. (2014) concluded that cell phone addiction undermines scholastic achievement as students use their cell phones to ‘remove’ themselves from classroom activities, cheat, and disrupt their studies.”
Smartphone use and smartphone addiction among young people in Switzerland (2015, background): “In one study of 164 US college undergraduates, Roberts et al. (2014) indicated that females reported spending signi ﬁ cantly more time on their phones per day than males, and that texting, sending e-mails, and using social media sites were the most time-consuming activities.”
The Social Media Party: Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), Social Media Intensity, Connection, and Well-Being (2020, background): “Hours spent on social media can be explained, especially for teens and young adults, by an intense desire to gather information that signals one’s place in the social hierarchy (Roberts et al., 2014; Whiting & Williams, 2013). Trepass (2018) argues that information foraging “can be considered ration”
Modelling smartphone addiction: The role of smartphone usage, self-regulation, general self-efficacy and cyberloafing in university students (2016, background): “While various features of smartphones have been pointed to as causes of addiction (Roberts et al., 2014), the major factors affecting smartphone addiction have yet to be revealed (Pi, 2013).”