Smartphone Addiction and Social Appearance Anxiety as Predictors of Junior High Students’ Need to Make a Good Impression

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate the relative contribution of smartphone addiction and social appearance anxiety as well as age and gender in predicting early adolescents' need to make a good impression. 382 students (50% girls) from two junior high schools answered the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version, the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale and the Need for Social Approval Scale. As a result of the regression analysis, age, gender, smartphone addiction and social appearance anxiety contributed significantly to explain 38% of the variance in adolescents' need to make a good impression. Social appearance anxiety was found to be the strongest predictor of the need to make a positive impression in early adolescents. A moderate positive relationship was found between smartphone addiction and the need to leave a positive impression. While age was negatively related to the need to make a good impression, girls were found to have a higher need to make a good impression than boys. Examining the model with regression diagnostics, it was concluded that it is a reliable model that can be generalized to the population.