A model of the relationship between psychological characteristics, mobile phone addiction and use of mobile phones by Taiwanese university female students

Abstract

While many researches have analyzed the psychological antecedents of mobile phone addiction and mobile phone usage behavior, their relationship with psychological characteristics remains mixed. We investigated the relationship between psychological characteristics, mobile phone addiction and use of mobile phones for 269 Taiwanese female university students who were administered Rosenberg's self-esteem scale, Lai's personality inventory, and a mobile phone usage questionnaire and mobile phone addiction scale. The result showing that: (1) social extraversion and anxiety have positive effects on mobile phone addiction, and self-esteem has negative effects on mobile phone addiction. (2) Mobile phone addiction has a positive predictive effect on mobile phone usage behavior. The results of this study identify personal psychological characteristics of Taiwanese female university students which can significantly predict mobile phone addiction; female university students with mobile phone addiction will make more phone calls and send more text messages. These results are discussed and suggestions for future research for school and university students are provided. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.