Understanding Nomophobia: Structural Equation Modeling and Semantic Network Analysis of Smartphone Separation Anxiety

Abstract

This study explicates nomophobia by developing a research model that identifies several determinants of smartphone separation anxiety and by conducting semantic network analyses on smartphone users' verbal descriptions of the meaning of their smartphones. Structural equation modeling of the proposed model indicates that personal memories evoked by smartphones encourage users to extend their identity onto their devices. When users perceive smartphones as their extended selves, they are more likely to get attached to the devices, which, in turn, leads to nomophobia by heightening the phone proximity-seeking tendency. This finding is also supplemented by the results of the semantic network analyses revealing that the words related to memory, self, and proximity-seeking are indeed more frequently used in the high, compared with low, nomophobia group.

Nomophobia: An Individual’s Growing Fear of Being without a Smartphone—A Systematic Literature Review

“…The research analyzed is eminently exploratory, descriptive, nonexperimental, correlational, and cross-sectional, using the questionnaire as a single research collection instrument [1,2,4,13,16,[18][19][20]23,25,26,[29][30][31][32][33]35,37,39,58,[61][62][63][64], presenting a quantitative methodological design. Others, however, extend this information with mixed methodological design, including qualitative techniques, such as interviews or discussion groups [5,20,24,65].…”

“…Others have studied the relationship between nomophobia and psychic and psychological variables such as anxiety [20,33,37,39], panic disorder [5,20,59], stress [11], depression, avoidance or hostility [12,39], obsessiveness [12,25], FOMO (fear of missing out) [15], personality (extraversion, awareness, emotional stability and regulation, sympathy, and openness to experience) [12,13,16,26,33,35], mindfulness [58], and loneliness and self-happiness [26]. Moreover, others have studied the relationship between nomophobia and sociological, educational, and other factors, including Internet usage and social media [29,37], academic performance [2], learning and attention [13,62], socio-educational variables and collectivism [63], and social threat [11].…”

“…The samples used in the various studies vary considerably, both in number, where there is a range from one person to 3216, and in the population on which it is focused. First, in relation to the size of the sample, there are studies that have used a sample between one and 150 people [19,21,27,33,59,61], between 151 and 400 people [11,13,18,[23][24][25]30,31,34,35,60,62,64], between 401 and 1000 people [1,2,4,12,[14][15][16]22,26,29,32,36,37,39,58,63,65], or more than 1000 [7]. Second, with regard to population, studies have focused on volunteers of various classes and types [5,16,20,22,59,60], adolescents or youth [4,7,28,[34]…”

“…Most studies have conducted their research exclusively using the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q) [1,2,4,7,13,14,18,19,22,24,[27][28][29][30][31][32]34,62,64] proposed by [24], which has been adequate and adapted to Persian [7], Indian [2], Spanish [27,28,34], Israeli [14], Italian [12], and Arabic [22] contexts. Other researchers have also added another measuring instrument, such as the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) [12,14], Obsessiveness Content Scale (OBS) [25], ultrasonography of the median nerve, Phalen's test, and reverse Phalen's test [61], FOMO Scale [15], UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8), Self-Happiness Scale and Rosenberg' Self-Esteem Scale [26], Stress Scale Social Threat Scale [11], Brief Symptom Inventory [12], Mobile Phone Involvement Questionnaire (MPIQ) [35], Scale of Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) and Scale of Attention Awareness Mindful-Warning (MAAS) [39], Mindful-Awareness Scale (MAAS) [58], Individualism-Collectivism (INDCOL) [63], Problematic Internet Use Scale (PIUS), Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS) and Social media use integration scale [37], Emotional Intelli...…”

Text You Pictures: The Role of Group Belonging, Race Identity, Race, and Gender in Older Adolescents’ Mobile Phone Use

“…Adolescents and emerging adults are often referred to as "digital natives" because they are part of an age cohort that has grown up with the internet (Hargittai 2010;Nakamura and Chow-White 2012). According to Global Web Index (Global Web Index GWI), mobile phones are the primary device for accessing social media platforms throughout the day, and also that the 16-24 age cohort is four times more likely to choose the mobile phone as their most important device when compared to 55-64 s. As a channel to digital and social media, the mobile phone is an extension of self for many young people (e.g., Han et al 2017;Ling and Pedersen 2006). Research indicates that, on average, young people use digital and social mobile media to connect with friends, acquaintances, and to communities outside of their immediate experience (Jenkins et al 2015).…”