Going from Bad (Social Media Use) to Worse (Smartphone Addiction)

Smartphone use has become so much a part of everyday life, that individuals may not realize the potential for addiction to these devices. This study assesses social media use, smartphone addiction, and quality of life. Participants were 405 undergraduates (91% Caucasian, 77% female) who completed online surveys. Social media use was assessed by summing self-reported minutes on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Snapchat. Smartphone addiction was assessed using the Cell-Phone Addiction Scale (MRCPAS; Roberts et al., 2014). Quality of life included physical and mental health, assessed using a modified version of the SF-12 Health Survey (Ware et al., 1996), and depression, anxiety, and stress, assessed using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). Scales had good reliability (range = .74 to .90). Preliminary analyses indicated that being younger was related to more social media use, smartphone addiction, and better physical and mental health; females also reported greater social media use and more smartphone addiction than did males. Therefore, primary analyses controlled for age and gender. As predicted, partial correlations indicated that more social media use was related to worse physical health, more anxiety, and more stress (all r’s > ± .10, all p’s ± .18, all p’s = .000). Overall, it appears that excessive social media use is not a good thing, but smartphone addiction is worse; strategies focused on decreasing both are needed