Nomophobia as the Predictor of Secondary School Students' Smartphone Addiction

Abstract

Smartphones have become an integral part of daily life for individuals of all age groups. When used consciously smartphones provide important benefits in many areas of life including education, otherwise, these tools bring serious negative consequences especially on children and youngsters. This study aims to determine the smartphone addiction and nomophobia levels of secondary school students, and to investigate the relationship between smartphone addiction and nomophobia besides some other demographic variables. 463 secondary school student participated in the study on a voluntary basis. In order to explore the smartphone addiction and prevalence of nomophobia among secondary school students “Personal Information Form” and “Nomophobia Scale” was employed. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis techniques were utilized to analyze the data. Research findings revealed that 71% of the students did not consider themselves smartphone addicts, while 93% of them were nomophobic at different levels. Results revealed a moderate significant relationship between smartphone addiction and nomophobia, and nomophobia was the strongest predictor of smartphone addiction. Gender and school variables were among other predictors of smartphone addiction.