Smartphone Addiction: Impact, Challenges, and Effects on Cognition Skills among the Dental Students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Abstract Objective Smartphones are multifunctional devices providing a range of beneficial technologies and applications that support communication, socialization, entertainment, and education but also have a few disadvantages related to overdependence among students in general and more specifically with its effects seen in cognition among professional ones such as dental students. This study aims to explore the effect of smartphones on the academic and clinical performance of undergraduate and internship dental students in universities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods In this cross-sectional study, the data were collected using 32 questionnaire-based Google forms which the concerned academic level students filled. The first part included 5 questions related to demographic data, while the second part included 24 questions assessing smartphone addiction and its impact on academic performance; furthermore, the last part of the survey has 3 questions inquiring about the effect of smartphones on clinical performance. Results Five-point Likert scale was used which has shown that as the level of study increases, smartphone use has also increased gradually. There was a positive correlation to the ill effects of high use of smartphones ranging from the patient himself experiencing high use of his device and often leading to lack of sleep. In contrast, some positive outcomes were related to the participants not using their devices while in the clinical atmosphere largely associated with the strict infection control protocol and self-awareness. Discussion Our findings can be correlated to various other studies that highlight the peers telling the participants about the increased risk of their smartphones and the same being felt by themselves. This highlights a positive result in the awareness campaigns being carried out and the main effect has been related to lack of sleep. A high infection control protocol can limit the dependency of the students on smartphone use among the clinics, but this does not relieve the overall high-level use among dental students. Conclusion An attempt should be made to educate the young population about the bad effects of the smartphone especially long hours of usage, bad timing, overdependence, and psychological impact. More studies are needed to assess the psychological impact of smartphone usage among this population.