Age and gender demographics in social media use, Smartphone addiction and psychological morbidity among university undergraduates in Southwest Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30442/ahr.0601-03-63Keywords:
Addiction, Age, Gender, Social media, SmartphonesAbstract
Background: Smartphone addiction has become a public health issue. The use of social media has led to unintended consequences, especially among young adults and college students. Unfortunately, the pattern of use, the prevalence of addiction and the relationship with actual psychological morbidity are not clear.
Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of Smartphone addiction and the relationship to the frequency of social media use and psychological morbidity among Nigerian university students.
Method: One hundred and fifty-nine students were recruited through social media invites and direct invitation from Lecture Halls. The socio-demographic forms, the Smartphone Addiction Scale (Short Version) and Self-reporting Questionnaire-20 were administered.
Results: WhatsApp was the most frequently accessed social media phone application (62.9%).Participants who used Instagram had the highest mean score on SAS-SV (31.4±9.4) and SRQ-20 (8.1±5.3). The prevalence of Smartphone addiction was 34.6% (55/159) while 48.4% (77/159) met the criteria for psychological morbidity. A higher proportion of males met the criteria for Smartphone addiction (29; 50.8%). Males had higher mean SAS scores (31.7±9.4) compared to the females (28.1±8.5) (p = 0.01). Smartphone addiction was more frequently associated with psychological morbidity among males (p = 0.01). No significant difference in Smartphone addiction and psychological morbidity was found across ages.
Conclusion: Smartphone addiction is prevalent and associated with psychological morbidity among male undergraduates. There is a need to direct interventions at curbing its prevalence among undergraduates.
References
Sager I. Before iPhone and Android came Simon, the first smartphone. Bloomberg Businessweek 2012; 29. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-29/before-iphone-and-android-came-simon-the-first-smartphone. Accessed on March 1st, 2020.
Alosaimi FD, Alyahya H, Alshahwan H, Al Mahyijari N, Shaik SA. Smartphone addiction among university students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Med J 2016; 37(6): 675-683.
Alhazmi AA, Alzahrani SH, Baig M, Salawati EM. Prevalence and factors associated with smartphone addiction among medical students at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. Pakistan J Med Med Sci 2018; 34(4): 984-988.
Smith A, Page D. US smartphone use in 2015. Pew Research Center. 2015.
Lee TY, Busiol D. A review of research on phone addiction amongst children and adolescents in Hong Kong. Int J Child Adolesc Health 2016; 9(4): 433.
Samaha M, Hawi NS. Relationships among smartphone addiction, stress, academic performance, and satisfaction with life. Computers Human Behav 2016; 57: 321.
Statista [internet] Number of smartphone users worldwide from 2014 to 2020. [[Accessed on 29thAugust 2019]]. Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/
Lepp A, Li J, Barkley JE, Salehi-Esfahani S. Exploring the relationships between college students’ cell phone use, personality and leisure. Computers Human Behav 2015; 43: 210-219.
Anderson M, Jiang J. Teens, social media and technology 2018. Pew Research Center 2018; 31:2018.
Haug S, Castro RP, Kwon M, Filler A, Kowatsch T, Schaub MP. Smartphone use and smartphone addiction among young people in Switzerland. J Behav Addict 2015; 4(4): 299-307.
Young KS. Internet addiction: A new clinical phenomenon and its consequences. Am Behav Sci 2004; 48(4): 402-415.
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®). American Psychiatric Pub; 2013.
Bianchi A, Phillips JG. Psychological predictors of problem mobile phone use. Cyber Psychol Behav 2005; 8(1): 39-51.
Aljomaa SS, Qudah MF, Albursan IS, Bakhiet SF, Abduljabbar AS. Smartphone addiction among university students in the light of some variables. Computers Human Behav 2016; 61: 155-164.
Lin YH, Chiang CL, Lin PH, Chang LR, Ko CH, Lee YH, et al. Proposed diagnostic criteria for smartphone addiction. PLoS ONE. 2016; 11(11): e0163010.
Olukayode K. Nigeria mobile Report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.jumia.com.ng/mobile-report/
Oharisiagbon OE, Onowhakpor AO. Knowledge, attitude, prevalence and determinants of Smartphone Addiction among undergraduate students of the University of Benin, Benin-City, Edo State Nigeria. Niger Hosp Pract 2019; 23(1-3): 8-15.
Kwon M, Kim, DJ, Cho H, Yang S. The smartphone addiction scale: development and validation of a short version for adolescents. PLoS ONE 2013; 8(12): e83558.
Scholte WF, Verduin F, van Lammeren A, Rutayisire T, Kamperman AM. Psychometric properties and longitudinal validation of the self-reporting questionnaire (SRQ-20) in a Rwandan community setting: a validation study. BMC Med Res Methodol 2011; 11(1): 116.
Sartorius N, Janca A. Psychiatric assessment instruments developed by the World Health Organization. Soc Psych Psych Epidemiol 1996; 31(2): 55-69.
Abiodun OA. Sensitivity and validity of the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ) in a primary health care centre in a rural community in Nigeria. Psychopathologie Africaine 1988; 22(1): 79-88.
Kim NS, Lee KE. Effects of self-control and life stress on smartphone addiction of university students. J Korea Soc Health Informatics Stat 2012; 37(2): 72-83.
Udodiong I. Pulse Nigeria-How Nigerians are using the internet in 2019 - Pulse Nigeria. Retrieved from https://www.pulse.ng › tech › how-Nigerians-are-using-the-internet-in-2019. Last accessed on 7th October 2019.
Montag C, Błaszkiewicz K, Sariyska R, Lachmann B, Andone I, Trendafilov B, et al. Smartphone usage in the 21st century: who is active on WhatsApp? BMC Res Notes 2015; 8(1): 331.
Adepoju TO, Ladipo SO, Kolawole AA. Do social media utilization and addiction influence undergraduate students' self-perception? A case study of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. J Emerging Trends Educ Res Policy Studies 2015; 6(7): 271-277.
Perrin A. Social media usage. Pew Research Center 2015: 52-68. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/. Accessed March 1st, 2020.
Rehbein F, Mößle T. Video game and Internet addiction: is there a need for differentiation? Sucht 2013; 59(3): 129–142.
Lee KE, Kim SH, Ha TY, Yoo YM, Han JJ, Jung JH, et al. Dependency on smartphone use and its association with anxiety in Korea. Public Health Reports 2016; 131(3): 411-419.
Abo-Jedi A. Cellphone addiction and its relation to self-closure in a sample of Jordanian university and Amman private university students. Jordanian J EducSci 2008; 4: 137-150.
Chen B, Liu F, Ding S, Ying X, Wang L, Wen Y. Gender differences in factors associated with smartphone addiction: a cross-sectional study among medical college students. BMC Psych 2017; 17(1): 341.
Luk TT, Wang MP, Shen C, Wan A, Chau PH, Oliffe J, et al. Short version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale in Chinese adults: Psychometric properties, sociodemographic, and health behavioral correlates. J Behav Addict 2018; 7(4): 1157-1165.
Choi SW, Kim DJ, Choi JS, Ahn H, Choi EJ, Song WY, et al. Comparison of risk and protective factors associated with smartphone addiction and Internet addiction. J Behav Addict 2015; 4(4): 308-314.
De-Sola Gutiérrez J, Rodríguez de Fonseca F, Rubio G. Cell-phone addiction: a review. Frontiers Psych 2016; 7: 175.
Machell KA, Goodman FR, Kashdan TB. Experiential avoidance and well-being: A daily diary analysis. Cognition Emotion 2015; 29(2): 351-359.
Naninck EF, Lucassen PJ, Bakker J. Sex differences in adolescent depression: do sex hormones determine vulnerability? J Neuroendocrinol. 2011; 23(5): 383–392.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The articles and other materials published in the Annals of Health Research are protected by the Nigerian Copyright laws. The journal owns the copyright over every article, scientific and intellectual materials published in it. However, the journal grants all authors, users and researchers access to the materials published in the journal with the permission to copy, use and distribute the materials contained therein only for academic, scientific and non-commercial purposes.