The Effect of Use Motives, Self-Control and Social Withdrawal on Smartphone Addiction

Abstract Despite the ever-increasing smartphone addiction of adolescents and a variety of consequent problems not much research has been conducted on the issue. It is time to prepare a set of countermeasures to protect them from the addiction. The central purpose of the current paper is to identify how use motives, self-control and social withdrawal affect their smartphone addiction. It was found (i) that the motives of information acquisition, social relationship, amusement and use of leisure time exert significant influence on smartphone addiction, (ii) that less self-control and greater impulsiveness result in greater addiction, and (iii) that social withdrawal of users also have significant effect on smartphone addiction. Such findings are expected to provide base data for any attempt to develop countermeasures against addiction. It is desirable that we had better check the play activities of adolescents and develop self-control programs to help them alleviate impulsiveness than simply impose strict restrictions on the use of smartphones.