Smartphone Usage and Anxiety among College Students during Social Isolation for Covid-19 Epidemic in China

Abstract

Background: Social isolation has been reported to cause mental disorder and altered behaviors including mounting smartphone usage among college students during the Covid-19 lockdown. Objective: The study aimed to investigate the profile of anxiety state and smartphone usage by self-reporting among students of three universities in China. Methods: The cross-section study was designed to document data on anxiety and behaviors including smartphones through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was built by the wjx.cn Wechat applet and composed of such three parts as the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) used to assess the anxiety state, behaviors including smartphone usage, and demography data. The linkage of self-reported anxiety and smartphone usage was analyzed using the linear model. Results: Overall 246 college students self-reported eligible data for the questionnaire from March 24 to 29 2020. The medium isolation duration of all participants was 20 [8.5, 40] days. Of all participants, 16.7% were evaluated to be anxious with a SAS score, not more than 60. It was not significant in the SAS score between the female and male, medical, and non-medical students. Larger than 70% of participants employed smartphone to occupy their self-isolated time. Smartphone usage was not significantly correlated with the SAS grade (r=0.033, P>0.05). Conclusions: In this study, college students suffered from slight anxiety during the social isolation against Covid-19 in China. It was suggested that smartphone usage might ameliorate the risk of anxiety during social isolation.