SAS-1: A single-item version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale

Abstract

The digital age has brought an increasing concern about the negative effects of smartphone use. However, current measures of smartphone addiction are often too long for some contexts, such as large-scale surveys or pilot studies. Here, we tested a single-item measure that probes agreement with the statement: ‘I am addicted to my smartphone’. Across 7,827 participants aged 18 to 89 from 131 countries, 37% agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. Their agreement strongly correlated (r = .67 to .71) with scores on the short version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS-SV), the most-used scale in the field. Younger women had the highest scores on both measures, and participants under 30 tended to underestimate their addiction on the single-item scale. Overall, our results suggest that most people have an accurate self-assessment of their own smartphone addiction. This new 1-item scale (SAS-1) can therefore serve as a brief and reliable measure of smartphone addiction when space is limited.