A new study has revealed that the countries with the worst smartphone addiction problems are China, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia from the 24 countries that participated.
Researchers at McGill University in Canada studied smartphone usage among nearly 34,000 people between 2014 and 2020. They published their findings in a journal, Computers in Human Behaviour.
Surprisingly, the USA ranked 18th, while Germany and France were at the bottom of the list. The Smartphone Addiction Scale is widely used to measure smartphone addiction. It includes aspects related to impact on daily life, unregulated use of mobile phones, and withdrawal from smartphone addiction.
The subjects were between 15-35 years old with an average age of 28.8 years. The majority of the subjects were women(60%).
Researchers also calculated each country’s problematic smartphone use, ranging from 10 to 60. China came in the number 1 spot but with a score of 36 out of 60. The reasons behind different scores in different countries were speculated to be social norms and cultural expectations with respect to the motivation to stay connected via smartphones.
Countries like Germany and France are “individualistic and culturally loose,” which makes them less than likely to promote such norms.
In all totality, it was found that problematic smartphone use is growing by the day and it can result in “psychological consequences.”
The meta-analysis of the problematic smartphone use focused on young adults, problematic use has witnessed a steady increase between 2014-2020 and this is likely to continue as per the research team.
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