Full length articleMobile phone dependency and its impacts on adolescents’ social and academic behaviors
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).
References (42)
- et al.
The dark side of smartphone usage: psychological traits, compulsive behavior and technostress
Computers in Human Behavior
(2014) - et al.
Problematic internet use among older adolescents: a conceptual framework
Computers and Human Behavior
(2013) Social anxiety and technology: face-to-face communication versus technological communication among teens
Computers in Human Behavior
(2009)- et al.
I need my smartphone: a hierarchical model of personality and cell-phone addiction
Personality and Individual Differences
(2015) - et al.
Practical issues in structural modeling
Sociological Methods & Research
(1987) - et al.
Psychological predictors of problem mobile phone use
CyberPsychology & Behavior
(2005) Problematic use of the mobile phone: a literature review and a pathways model
Current Psychiatry Reviews
(2012)- et al.
Does impulsivity relate to the perceived dependence on actual use of the mobile phone?
Applied Cognitive Psychology
(2007) Issues for DSM-V: internet addiction
American Journal Psychiatry
(2008)- et al.
From smart to cognitive phones
IEEE Pervasive Computing
(2012)
Human factors and age
Development and validation of emotional or behavioral problems scale
Korean Journal of Counseling and Psychotherapy
Korean adolescent girls additive use of mobile phones to maintain interpersonal
Social Behavior and Personality
Using mobile phones to increase classroom interaction
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia
Sem: Structural equation models. R package version 3.1-5
Dependence on computer games by adolescents
Psychological Reports
Characteristics of excessive cellular phone use in Korean adolescents
Cyberpsychology & Behavior
An educational mobile blogging system for supporting collaborative learning
Educational Technology & Society
Investigation of the relationship between high school students problematic mobile use and their self-esteem levels
Education
Korean manual of symptom checklist-90-revision
Effects of mobile instant messaging on collaborative learning processes and outcomes: the case of South Korea
Educational Technology & Society
Cited by (167)
Do comparative judgements affect the perceived relevance of mobile phone road safety campaigns?
2024, Traffic Injury PreventionParental attachment security and problematic internet use in children: The mediating role of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies
2024, Clinical Child Psychology and PsychiatryThe Association Between Bedtime Procrastination, Sleep Quality, and Problematic Smartphone Use in Adolescents: A Mediation Analysis
2024, Eurasian Journal of MedicineEffect of shyness on internet addiction: a cross-lagged study mediated by peer relationships
2024, Current Psychology