Abstract
Adolescents engage cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally with smartphones. Growing evidence suggests they struggle to interact with them in moderation, which has been framed in relation to behavioral addiction as problematic mobile phone use. This study contextualized 13-15 year-old adolescents' self-awareness of problematic mobile phone use. Focus groups were conducted with 11 adolescents who assessed themselves using the problematic use of mobile phones scale. The authors used interpretative phenomenological epistemology as a guiding framework. Audio recordings were analyzed qualitatively using a constant comparison approach. Students agreed or strongly agreed with multiple dimensions of the problematic mobile phone use construct. Four major themes emerged in relation to circumstances, factors, processes, constraints, and opportunities: drivers of excessive smartphone use, with family or friends, barriers to healthier smartphone use, and nighttime habits. Adolescents' assessment of perceived proper versus problematic mobile phone can inform hypotheses targeted at improving overall wellness and developing healthy habits in adolescence that carry over into young adulthood and beyond.
Highlights
A justification of why the study was implemented among students in the chosen schools can be helpful for readers
Nine and six of the eleven participants agreed or strongly agreed with items representing the PUMP dimensions of longer than intended and great deal of time spent, respectively. We found that these phenomena occurred for our 13-15 year-olds when they were interacting with only a select number of social media or texting apps, and this was facilitated by habitual processes of evaluating and responding to notifications or checking and re-checking app content
A significant reason that adolescents are attracted to social media apps is that they increase a sense of social inclusion and connectedness.[8]
Summary
A justification of why the study was implemented among students in the chosen schools can be helpful for readers. The authors mentioned reviewing the literature and the search terms used but has not clearly presented the outcome of the review or how this contributed to the study design. Author response: Thank you for this prompt to clarify why we targeted adolescents in this study. [2,4-5] While the detrimental effects of problematic mobile phone use on sleep, stress, anxiety, and depression can occur at various ages [2], adolescents comprise a notably vulnerable age group. This relates to decreased levels of self-control and low resistance to peer pressure. Steinberg and Monahan (2007) noted “susceptibility to peer pressure in adolescence follows an inverted U-shaped curve, increasing during early adolescence, peaking around age 14, and declining thereafter.” [6]
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