Smartphone addiction and application usage in Korean adolescents: Effects of mediation strategies

Sook Jung Lee, Changho Lee, Cheolhan Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

We examined adolescent application usage related to smartphone addiction and also explored mediation strategies used to prevent their addiction. Participants were 3,000 adolescents in grades 7 to 12 who completed an online survey. According to the findings, frequent use of social networking site applications (apps), game apps, and video apps tended to exacerbate adolescents’ addiction to smartphones. Mediation strategies negatively related to smartphone addiction were active parental mediation for young adolescent girls, technical restrictions for young adolescent boys, and limited service plans for both these groups. Parental restriction tended to increase the likelihood of smartphone addiction. Addiction prevention programs being implemented in schools did not have any impact in preventing addiction. Overall, our findings suggest that the effects of mediation strategies are weak and these effects are limited to young adolescents.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1525-1534
Number of pages10
JournalSocial Behavior and Personality
Volume44
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

Keywords

  • Adolescents
  • Application usage
  • Parental mediation
  • Smartphone addiction
  • Technical restriction

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