Relationship between Smartphone Addiction and Knowledge of Smartphone Addiction among Adolescents: Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The smartphone as a multifunctioning device has become an indispensable resource in everyone’s life, especially among adolescents. Owning advanced smartphones and becoming overly reliant on them may result in behavioural addiction. Adolescents may overuse smartphones, sometimes knowingly or unknowingly, but it impacts their physical and mental health. Objectives To find a relationship between smartphone addiction and knowledge of smartphone addiction among adolescents. Materials and Methods: A descriptive correlation design where 209 adolescents (105 males and 104 females) were selected using multi-stage random sampling techniques from selected high schools, and the same sampling technique is employed to select the high schools. Personal variables include the general aspects of the adolescents. In order to assess the level of smartphone addiction, SAS-SV was utilized, and the researcher constructed selfadministered questionnaires to assess knowledge regarding smartphone addiction. Results/discussion: The majority (66.99%) of adolescents are at high risk for smart phone addiction, whereas 27.75% of adolescents were found to be addicted to smart phones. The majority (48.8%) of the adolescents possessed above the median level of knowledge of smartphone addiction. The correlation between smartphone addiction and knowledge of smartphone addiction scores of adolescents was found to be a negligible negative correlation (r = - 0.091, p > 0.05), which is not statistically significant. Conclusion: Smartphone addiction emerged as a behavioural addiction of an individual and independent entity, not based on the level of knowledge of smartphone addiction. Smartphone use can be affected by the socio-cultural contexts in which individuals live and the purpose of use their smartphone.