Smartphone Usage as a Predictor of Psychological Wellbeing among College Students

Abstract

Wellbeing is a state of good physical, psychological and social functioning of an individual enabling him to function in coherence with self and society. While health indicates the state of the body and mind, wellbeing refers to the positive side of physical, psychological and social functioning. Physical and psychological wellbeing is concerned just with the individual and social wellbeing is the ability to be in coherence with the society and maintaining good social relationships. Smartphone usage is a very important factor that needs to be studied in relation to their wellbeing as college students spend most of their time with their smartphone. In the present study, correlational research design was used to study the relationship between smartphone usage and their psychological wellbeing based on the objectives and hypotheses which need not be a cause and effect relationship. The study was carried out in Kakinada (also popular as Co-Canada), Andhra Pradesh. The sample size was 400 college students. The age group of the sample ranged from 16-25 years. The findings of the study indicated that the total psychological wellbeing of the college students showed negative correlation with ritualistic and problematic smartphone usage but not instrumental usage where the students used it for goal directed activities. Autonomy was the only psychological variable which was not predicted by smartphone usage. Instrumental smartphone use positively predicted some of the dimensions of psychological wellbeing but other usage patterns i.e., ritualistic and problematic usage negatively affected the psychological wellbeing.