Measuring Smartphone Usage Time Is Not Sufficient to Predict Smartphone Addiction

Usage time is a major criterion to determine whether a user is addicted to their smartphone, and many smartphone apps aiming to decrease smartphone addiction have been developed with this criterion in mind. However, this rule of thumb is based on an incorrect assumption that develops from studies on internet addiction. Our study tests how applicable this rule truly is, through correlation and discriminant analysis on smartphone usage patterns. Using a self-diagnosis scale for smartphone addiction (S scale for short) and smartphone usage tracker, we collected S scale scores and smartphone usage patterns from 195 undergraduate participants. The statistical results indicate that 1) smartphone addiction is highly correlated with communication but not entertainment and 2) solely measuring the total usage time is not enough to predict whether a smartphone user is addicted. Our results imply that additional measures to capture richer information on smartphone-related activities are necessary for developing anti-addiction apps.