Smartphone addiction and its relation to social phobia in female university students

Abstract

BackgroundThe problematic smartphone use has emerged with negative mental health consequences. The current study aims to assess the rate of occurrence of smartphone addiction and the relationship between smartphone addiction and social phobia and its severity in a sample of female university students.ResultsOut of 540 female students, 28.7% have severe smartphone addiction with higher number in students of academic faculties; also, 71.86% of the whole sample have social phobia with 22.78%, 21.85%, 16.3%, and 10.93% reported mild, moderate, severe, and very severe social phobia scores respectively. The number of students reporting very severe social phobia in the academic group is higher than that in the practical group; also, the study shows a significant relation between smartphone addiction and social phobia.Conclusion and implicationsThere is a high rate of distribution of social phobia in young adult females, which is accompanied with increased in a high rate of occurrence of smartphone addiction; so, there is a need for raising the public awareness regarding hazards of problematic smartphone use in students and the importance of screening of different psychiatric disorders, as social phobia in such population.