Abstract
Despite the potential risks of excessive smartphone use for maladaptive outcomes, the link between smartphone use and aggression remains less understood. Furthermore, prior findings are inconclusive due to a narrow focus on limited aspects of smartphone use (e.g., screen time) and reliance on self-reported assessments of smartphone use. Therefore, using objective measures of smartphone use, we sought to examine the associations between several key indices of smartphone use—screen time, checking behaviors, and addictive tendency—and multifaceted aggression (i.e., confrontation, anger, and hostility). In a cross-sectional study, we administered a series of questionnaires assessing aggressive tendencies (i.e., The Aggression Questionnaire) and various aspects of smartphone use (N = 253, Mage = 21.8 years, female = 73.2%). Using structural equation modeling, we found that smartphone checking and addictive smartphone use predicted only hostility. In contrast, both objective and subjective measures of screen time did not predict any facets of aggression. These results highlight differing impacts of various indices of smartphone use on aggression and imply that excessive checking and addictive smartphone use are problematic smartphone-use behaviors that require more targeted interventions with respect to hostility.
Highlights
Excessive and habitual smartphone use has been found to predict maladaptive outcomes, including emotional and physical problems [1]
We found notable merits in assessing specific aspects of smartphone use, such as screen time, checking behaviors, and addictive use, because they are differentially related to aggression
Given that addictive use and frequent smartphone checking likely disrupt daily living, these findings provide support for the interference hypothesis, in that smartphone uses that interfere with concurrent activities are the ones that cause maladaptive outcomes for individuals [19]
Summary
Excessive and habitual smartphone use has been found to predict maladaptive outcomes, including emotional and physical problems (e.g., anxiety or sleep issues) [1]. Excessive smartphone use adversely influences daily activities such as sleep quality [2], which in turn induces stress, frustration, and negative affect. Given that these negative emotions heighten one’s aggressive tendencies [3,4], it is plausible that excessive or addictive smartphone use may be related to aggression, which consists of instrumental (i.e., physical and verbal aggression), affective (i.e., anger) and cognitive (i.e., hostility) components [5]. The frustration–aggression hypothesis [3,4] suggests that maladaptive smartphone use, which is associated with greater frustration and negative affect [6], could heighten aggressive inclinations. Excessive smartphone use has been shown to be associated with poorer sleep quality and shorter sleep duration [11,12], which implicate a loss of control over emotions and aggressive impulses [13]
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