Effect of Mobile Phone Dependency on Metacognition and Social Interest Among Young Adults

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest in the negative effects of problematic mobile phone usage on attention and concentration problems. However, only a few researchers have investigated the effects of mobile phone dependency on metacognition and social interest among young adults. Moreover, these effects have not been well understood among the Indian young adult population. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of mobile phone dependency on metacognition and social interest among young adults. It was hypothesized that a statistically significant correlation between mobile phone dependency and metacognition, and a statistically significant correlation between mobile phone dependency and social interest would be obtained. The sample consisted of 134 students (Mage = 22.10; SD = 3.03) with 38.8% (n=52) males, 59.7% (n=80) females, 0.7% (n=1) Other and 0.7% (n=1) Prefer not to say category. Data was collected using the Questionnaire for Nomophobia questionnaire (NMP-Q), metacognition questionnaire (MCQ-30) and social interest index. Linear regression was used to analyze data revealing a significantly strong relationship between the outcome variable metacognition and the predictor variable mobile phone dependency (R = .34), The proportion of variance in the outcome variable which can be explained by the model (the predictor variable) was 15.5% (R2 = .155), suggesting that the model is a good predictor of the outcome variable. The study indicates that mobile phone dependency increases unhelpful metacognitions and decreases the level of social interest among young adults.