Smartphone Addiction and Its Relationship with Indices of Social-Emotional Distress and Personality

We examined the relationships among smartphone addiction, social-emotional distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, sleep quality, and loneliness), and personality traits among 150 undergraduate college students. Participants completed the Smartphone Addiction Scale, the Outcome Questionnaire-45.2, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the UCLA Loneliness Scale-3, and the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five-Factor Inventory-3. Results showed that the more students were addicted to their smartphone, the higher their reported social-emotional distress was. Additionally, logistic analyses supported the predictive nature of smartphone addiction on specific domains of social-emotional distress. Personality did not moderate the relationship between smartphone addiction and social-emotional distress. However, neuroticism had a positive relationship with smartphone addiction, while extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientious all had a negative relationship with smartphone addiction. Overall, these findings can inform assessment and interventions targeted at reducing smartphone use and improving mental health of college students. Research implications are also provided considering the infancy of studying the effects of smartphone use on psychological well-being.