The relationship among the social norms of college students, and their interpersonal relationships, smartphone use, and smartphone addiction

Abstract

ABSTRACT Few studies have analysed the correlation between smartphone use and interpersonal relationships from the perspective of the impacts of social norms. Moreover, few studies have identified the impacts of various reference groups on social norms, multiple social relations, and smartphone usage behaviours, much less tried to further understand these variables’ impacts on college students’ smartphone addiction and the process of addiction. In this study, the structural equation model is adopted to analyze the scores of 220 Taiwanese college students. The results of this study are, as follows: (1) Smartphone addiction may reflect different social norm patterns for smartphone use; (2) smartphone addiction may be related to different interpersonal relationships and smartphone use patterns; (3) social norm pattern for smartphone use may also be related to different social relations. This study presents the possible impacts of various social reference group norms on smartphone usage behaviours and interpersonal relationships, learns about college students’ smartphone addiction, and provides characteristic indices of possible high-risk groups addicted to smartphones by distinguishing different social reference group norms, different interpersonal relationships, and different smartphone usage behaviours. Finally, this study discusses these factors and indices and provides some suggestions to future studies.