Forced Social Isolation leads to Smartphone Addiction and Depression

Abstract

Background: Addiction to smartphone usage is a common problem among adults worldwide. Smartphones are popular devices capable of processing more information than other phones. During COVID-19, a situation of “forced social isolation” was created which increased the use of smartphones. We conducted this study with the hypothesis that the period of social isolation may enhance depression and it may be related to the excessive use of smartphones among the population.
 Objective: The purpose of this work is to investigate the impact of social isolation on smartphone addiction and depression.
 Materials and methods: The study was carried out on 191 individuals (44.50% male) with a mean age of (23.79 ±3.91) years. The participants completed the questionnaire via online Google forms to access their smartphone use, depression and chronotype.
 Result: Smartphone use and depression significantly increase during social isolation (p<0.001). Smartphone addiction was found positively correlated with depression (r = 0.324, p < 0.01) and was maintained during social isolation conditions as well (r = 0.434, p <0.01). There was no direct effect of gender on smartphone addiction during lockdown (β= -0.059, t= -0.887, p= <0.001).
 Conclusions: The Smartphone addiction is positively correlated with depression and the social isolation induced the smartphone dependency may lead to depression in the Indian population. This study expanded the literature to include smartphone overuse and depression in the Indian population.