Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 63, October 2016, Pages 282-292
Computers in Human Behavior

Full length article
Mobile phone dependency and its impacts on adolescents’ social and academic behaviors

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.026Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The impacts of mobile phone dependency on social and academic behaviors in adolescents were examined.

  • Mobile phone dependency negatively predicted attention and positively predicted depression.

  • Mobile phone dependency affected social relationships with friends and academic achievement.

  • The mediating roles of relationships with friends were found between mobile phone dependency and the academic achievement.

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the possible intrapersonal (i.e., attention, depression) and interpersonal (i.e., social relationships with friends, social relationships with teachers) problems related to mobile phone dependency and their impacts on academic achievement in adolescents in South Korea using a national sample of 2159 middle and high school students (1074 male and 1085 female). A structural equation modeling approach with mediation analysis was employed to test the seven hypotheses drawn from conceptual and empirical bases. Results showed that mobile phone dependency negatively predicted attention and positively predicted depression, which in turn, affect social relationships with friends and both Korean language arts and mathematics achievement. Also, the mediating roles of attention, depression, and relationships with friends were found between mobile phone dependency and the academic achievement of middle and high school students in S. Korea. Based on the findings, implications of the current study and future directions for research were discussed.

Introduction

South Korea is one of the countries where information and technology (IT) has become a major driver of the economy in recent years and where most people have access to high-speed Internet (Campbell & Choudhury, 2012). According to the 2015 Mobile Phones Usage Statistics released by the Korean Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), approximately 57.77 million (112% of the total population in South Korea) were registered for mobile subscriptions in South Korea, meaning that there are more mobile phones in use than the total population in the country (MSIP, 2015). Such a high rate of mobile phone use is also reflected in the school-aged population; a report from the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF, 2013) said that mobile phone ownership among adolescents aged 12–19 years has exceeded 90%, accompanied with high exposure to mobile media and technologies in various ways (The Neilsen Company, 2013).

While several studies have found advantages of using mobile media and technologies for school-aged adolescents such as vocabulary learning (Lu, 2008), second language learning (Thornton & House, 2005), and classroom engagement (Wang, Shen, Novak, & Pan, 2009), much research has discussed the potentially negative, problematic use of mobile phones (Bianchi and Phillips, 2005, Billieux, 2012, Ha et al., 2008). When it comes to the “dark side” of mobile phones for younger people (Lee, Chang, Lin, & Cheng, 2014), the research findings have revealed concerns about problematic use of mobile phones such as behavioral or technological addiction and its influences on intrapersonal (e.g., attention, depression etc.) and interpersonal characteristics (Block, 2008). In particular, there are indications that younger people have an even higher likelihood of using the short message service (SMS) function and other features on mobile phones and being influenced by such features, resulting in increased exposure to emotional and social problems (Bianchi and Phillips, 2005, Charness and Bosman, 1992).

Regarding the potential risks of mobile phones, several medical experts and psychologists have revealed concerns about serious public health issues such as electromagnetic radiation, hearing impairments, and psychological distress/disorders (e.g., compulsive–impulsive spectrum) in S. Korea where the most saturated mobile market is established (Block, 2008, Young, 2007). In particular, excessive or addictive use of the mobile phone and its impact on psychological disorders has received more attention in the fields of human health and psychology; relatively less evidence has been provided regarding how psychological problems impact on other aspects of adolescents’ social relationships and academic development. Recognizing that the majority of school-aged children and adolescents in S. Korea put a mobile device into their hands and use it as communication device for their social relations inside and outside of school (Campbell and Choudhury, 2012, The Neilsen Company, 2013), it seems logical to assume that such dependency may produce psychological problems as well as other developmental problems, which could potentially impede students’ success at school and beyond. In an effort to examine the broader impact of mobile phone use on adolescents’ development, this study was designed to investigate the intertwined relationships between adolescents’ emotional, social, and academic development. Thus, the primary goal of this study is to delineate the various factors that can be influenced by the mobile phone dependency of middle and high school students in S. Korea.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework underlying hypotheses

There has been a lack of studies that systematically articulate the theories and conceptual frameworks that underlie recent studies of problematic mobile use and its impacts on youth development (Moreno et al., 2013, Moreno et al., 2011). Moreover, the clinical characteristics of problematic or excessive use of up-to-date technology and media have been described in various ways, such as problematic internet use, internet overuse, mobile phone overuse, etc. (Lepp et al., 2014, Thomee et al., 2011

Hypotheses and proposed model

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree to which mobile phone dependency is related to psychological characteristics, expressed as attention and depression, using a sample of secondary students in South Korea. It also aims at clarifying the role of psychological factors in social and academic development related to mobile phone dependency. Further, the study tries to establish whether there are differences with respect to gender and academic subjects (i.e., Korean language arts and

Korean children and youth panel survey

Data was obtained from the National Youth Policy Institute (NYPI)’s Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS) data archive for public use. The NYPI conducted a longitudinal search based on repeated track surveys and interviews over an identical sampling of Korean elementary and middle school students (including three cohorts: first and fourth year in elementary school, first year in middle school). The longitudinal data of KCYPS were established by monitoring the actual conditions of

Demographic information and descriptive statistics

The final sample of high school students contained 2159 respondents. Of the 2159 participants used for the analysis, 1074 (49.75%) were male and 1085 (50.25%) were female. Table 2 summarizes the demographic information for the complete sample.

Measurement model

Internal consistency reliabilities for each factor were calculated using Cronbach’s alpha in Table 3. The depression and mobile dependence factors used in this study provided strong reliability (depression α = 0.91 and mobile dependency α = 0.91). The

Discussion

This study aimed to examine the possible intrapersonal and interpersonal problems related to mobile phone dependency and their impacts on academic achievement in adolescents in South Korea using a national sample. A structural equation modeling approach with mediation analysis was employed to test the seven hypotheses drawn from conceptual and empirical bases. The findings can be summarized as follows: (a) Mobile phone dependency negatively predicted attention and positively predicted

Acknowledgement

This study was supported through internal grants by the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Hallym University Research Fund, 2015 (HRF-201509-001).

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