Smartphone Addiction and Health Issues among Young Adults in India: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Purpose : Since smartphone usage across the world has increased in the recent years, the present study aims to explore smartphone addiction in young college going adults and common factors associated with it. Method : 306 female college students volunteered to be part of this study. Demographic information including smartphone usage and sleeping hours per day were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS) was used to evaluate level of addiction to smartphone. Results and discussion : SAS score of participants was 137.64, which shows higher rate of addiction to smartphone. 27.1% of the participants complained of pain and other health related symptoms, 66.3% reported awareness of symptoms occurring due to mobile overuse, 34.6% reported changes in sleeping pattern and 43.5% in sleeping hours. Conclusion : A higher rate of addiction to smartphone is associated with negative effects on health, social life and might present difficulties to performance in education.