Smartphone Use and Loneliness Among Female University Students: The Impact of Having or Not Having a Boyfriend

Abstract

Administering a set of self-reporting questionnaires to 169 people who identify as female university students, this study investigated associations between smartphone-dependence scores and scores for loneliness and trait anxiety. Loneliness and trait-anxiety scores correlated with scores for smartphone dependence only for respondents who did not have a boyfriend: No similar association was apparent for those who had a boyfriend. These findings suggest that having or not having a boyfriend is a factor both in smartphone dependence and in loneliness and trait anxiety.