Smartphone Addiction: Its Relationships to Personality Traits and Types of Smartphone Use

Abstract

Studies found that smartphone addiction is relevant to the personality of smartphone users, especially the extroverts and introverts. However, the findings of the associations between extroverts/introverts and smartphone addiction are not consistent, and it is suggested that the inconsistency results can be relevant to the types of smartphone use. Accordingly, this study adopts the use and gratification theory as a framework to examine the relationships among extroverts/introverts, smartphone addiction, and the types of smartphone use, and the mediating effect of the types of smartphone use in the relationships between extroverts/introverts and smartphone addiction. Three hundred eighteen undergraduates were recruited to fill in a questionnaire using the purposive sampling method. Results show that both introverts and extroverts are associated with smartphone addiction. However, introverts are more likely to use smartphones for process usage but extroverts for social usage. In addition, process usage but not social usage is positively associated with smartphone addiction. Moreover, only process usage is the statistical mediator for the effects of introverts on smartphone addiction. The findings indicate that intervention programs can be developed to provide more alternative activities to reduce the dependence on smartphones among introverts to gratify their process needs.

The Relationship between the Leisure Boredom, Leisure Satisfaction, and Smartphone Addiction: A Study on University Students

“…According to Lin et al, (2014), smartphone addiction is a type of technological addiction that is non-chiral and includes human-machine interaction (Rahim et al, 2021).…”

Stuck in the DMs: The association between introversion/extraversion and self-confidence through text-based communication.

“…Escaping into the phones to contact others may serve simultaneous functions for individuals with higher extraversion—both allowing them to find stimulation as well as to maintain their social connections virtually (Ehrenberg et al, 2008; Rahim et al, 2021). The direction of effects suggests that both the motivation and the type of technology use are important; in other words, texting other people might be a more adaptive form of escape than more passive internet-based behavior (e.g., scrolling through social media) or nonrelational behavior (e.g., single-player games).…”

“…On the one hand, it is conceivable that this use of texting might be protective as it helps to prevent individuals from engaging in states of solitude that might undermine self-confidence (Thomas et al, 2021). On the other hand, it could help to sustain stimulation and connections in real life (Ehrenberg et al, 2008; Rahim et al, 2021). However, it is also plausible that it would work to further entrench individuals with greater extraversion (and/or those higher in introversion with lower self-confidence) in their fear of solitude, which can have negative consequences to the self, such as social anxiety, loneliness, and poor psychological adjustment (Lee et al, 2014; Thomas et al, 2021).…”

Measuring Technology Interference in Parent–Child Relationship: The Polish Version of the Disrupt Scale

“…The typical for introverts process (non-social) usage of a smartphone, i.e. searching information, reading news, watching videos (Abd Rahim et al, 2020), may increase after the child's birth and indicate intensified technoference. Due to the lack of consensus over the association between extraversion and technology interference, further research into this issue may be needed.…”