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Abstract

This article quantifies the heavy use of smartphone and Facebook among African American college students. It examines the major predictors of smartphone and Facebook overuse, including demographic and personality traits. It further explores the effect of heavy utilization of smartphone and Facebook on the academic performance of African American college students. Younger and female users spent significantly more time on their smartphones. However, excessive Facebook use was not related to gender of our participants. In terms of the prevalence rate, about 11% of the sample showed a high level of smartphone addiction and 10% scored a high level of Facebook addiction. Among personality and psychological traits, social interaction anxiety was the most important predictor of heavy utilization of smartphone and Facebook, not extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, or conscientiousness. As expected, multitasking was significantly and positively correlated with excessive smartphone and Facebook use. Surprisingly, multitasking behavior and frequent checking of smartphones did not harm academic performance. Possible reasons for the absence of negative effects on grade point average (GPA) are discussed.