Abstract
There are an increasing number of studies on smartphone addiction (SA) among students, and also a number of cross-cultural ones. We add to this body of research by presenting, for the first time, a cross-cultural study comparing students in four Middle Eastern countries: Sudan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. In this context, we also attempt to replicate findings—in other studies—that there are differences in smartphone addiction prevalence along the lines of sex, culture and subject of study. These findings were indeed replicated in a Middle Eastern context. We found significant differences between the Jordanian sample and the other three samples, with Jordanians displaying higher SA. The Sudanese displayed higher SA than the Yemenis, and the Saudis higher than the Sudanese or the Yemeni. We also found that females displayed greater SA than males and humanities students greater SA than science students.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Al-Barashdi, H., Bouazza, A., & Jabur, N. (2015). Smartphone addiction among university undergraduates: A literature review. Journal of Scientific Research & Reports, 4, 210–225. https://doi.org/10.9734/JSRR/2015/12245.
Aljomaa, S., Al Qudah, M., Albursan, I., Bakhiet, S., & Abduljabbar, A. (2016). Smartphone addiction among university students in the light of some variables. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 155–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.041.
Alter, A. (2017). Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked. London: Penguin.
Ayar, D., Bektas, M., Bektas, I., Akdeniz Kudubes, A., Selekoglu, Y., Sal, S., & Selik, I. (2017). The effect of adolescents’ internet addiction on smartphone addiction. Journal of Addictions Nursing, 4, 2010–2214.
Beranuy, M., Oberst, U., Carboner, X., & Chamarro, A. (2009). Problematic internet and mobile phone use and clinical symptoms in college students: The role of emotional intelligence. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(5), 1182–1187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2009.03.001.
Bolle, C. (2014). “Who is a smartphone addict?” The impact of personal factors and type of usage on smartphone addiction in a Dutch population. Master’s thesis. University of Twente Enschede, Netherlands.
Boumosleh, J., & Jaalouk, D. (2017). Smartphone addiction among university students and its relationship with academic performance. Global Journal of Health Science. https://doi.org/10.5539/gjhs.v10n1p48.
Ching, S., Yee, A., Ramachandran, V., Lim, S., Sulaiman, W., Foo, Y., & Hoo, & Fa. (2015). Validation of a Malay version of the smartphone addiction scale among medical students in Malaysia. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139337.
Choi, Y., Koo, J., & Kim, E. (2015). Gender differences in addictive smartphone use among Korean adolescents. Korean Sociology, 12, 143–160. https://doi.org/10.21562/kjs.2015.12.49.6.143.
Chóliz, M., Pinto, L., Phansalkar, S. S., et al. (2012). Mobile-phone addiction in adolescence: The test of mobile phone dependence (TMD). Progress in Health Sciences, 7, 650. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00650.
De Fruyt, F., & Mervielde, I. (1996). Personality and interests as predictors of educational streaming and achievement. European Journal of Personality, 10, 405–425.
De-Sola Gutiérrez, J., Rodríguez de Fonseca, F., & Rubio, G. (2016). Cell-phone addiction: A review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 7, 175.
Dutton, E. (In Press). Race differences in ethnocentrism. Budapest: Arktos Publishing.
Fox, Z. (2013, 27th August). The 15 countries with the highest smartphone penetration. https://Mashable.com.
Ghazal, M. (2014, 26th February ). 95% of Jordanians own mobiles; 47% use the internet. The Jordan Times. http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/95-jordanians-own-mobiles-47-use-internet.
Ghazal, M. (2016, 7th January ). Number of internet users in Jordan rises to 6.3 million. The Jordan Times. http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/number-internet-users-jordan-rises-63-million.
Gökçearslan, Ş, Mumcu, F., Haşlaman, T., & Çevik, Y. (2016). Modelling smartphone addiction: The role of smartphone usage, self-regulation, general self-efficacy and cyberloafing in university students. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 639–649. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.091.
Hamid, T. (2014). Mena embraces smart phones. The National. https://www.thenational.ae/business/mena-embraces-smartphones-1.313688.
Heilat, M. Q. (2016). Smart phone use addiction and its relationship with thinking styles among outstanding and under probation female students at Princess Alia University College. Educational Journal, Elazhar University, 169, 533–562.
Hong, F., Chiu, S., & Huang, D. (2012). A model of the relationship between psychological characteristics, mobile phone addiction and use of mobile phones by Taiwanese university female students. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2152–2159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.06.020.
Kadir, D., Mehmet, A., & Abdullah, A. (2015). Relationship of smartphone use severity with sleep quality, depression, and anxiety in university students. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.4.2015.010.
Kim, N., & Lee, K. (2012). Effects of self-control and life stress on smart phone addiction of university students. Journal of the Korea Society of Health Informatics and Statistics, 37, 72–83.
Kim, Y., Lee, N., & Lim, Y. (2017). Gender differences in the association of smartphone addiction with food group consumption among Korean adolescents. Public Health, 145, 132–135.
Kuss, D., Griffiths, M., & Pontes, H. (2016). Chaos and confusion in DSM-5 diagnosis of internet gaming disorder: Issues, concerns, and recommendations for clarity in the field. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.5.2016.062.
Lee, E. (2015). Too much information: Heavy smartphone and Facebook utilization by African American young adults. Journal of Black Studies, 46(1), 44–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934714557034.
Lee, W., & Shin, S. (2016). A comparative study of smartphone addiction drivers’ effect on work performance in the U.S. and Korea. The Journal of Applied Business Research, 32(2), 507–516.
Long, J., Liu, T., Liao, Y., Qi, C., He, H., Chen, S., & Billieux, J. (2016). Prevalence and correlates of problematic smartphone use in a large random sample of Chinese undergraduates. BMC Psychiatry, 16, 408–420. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-016-1083-3.
Lopez-Fernandez, O. (2017). Short version of the smartphone addiction scale adapted to Spanish and French: Towards a cross-cultural research in problematic mobile phone use. Addictive Behaviors, 64, 275–280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2015.11.013.
Lopez-Fernandez, O., Kuss, D., Roma, L., Morvan, Y., Kern, L., et al. (2017). Self-reported dependence on mobile phones in young adults: A European cross-cultural empirical survey. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. doi.https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.6.2017.020.
Mak, K., Nam, J., Kim, D., Aum, N., Choi, J., Cheng, C., & Watanabe, H. (2017). Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the Korean Scale for Internet Addiction (K-Scale) in Japanese high school students. Psychiatry Research, 249, 343–348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2017.01.044.
Meisenberg, G. (2015). Do we have valid country-level measures of personality? Mankind Quarterly, 55, 360–382.
Nettle, D. (2007). Personality: What makes you who you are. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
OpenSignal.com. (November 2016). The state of LTE.
Pontes, H. M., Kuss, D. J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). The clinical psychology of Internet addiction: A review of its conceptualization, prevalence, neuronal processes, and implications for treatment. Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics, 4, 11–23.
Seo, D., Park, Y., Kim, M., & Park, J. (2016). Mobile phone dependency and its impacts on adolescents’ social and academic behaviors. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 282–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.026.
Sethuraman, A., Rao, S., Charlette, L., Thatkar, P., & Vincent, V. (2018). Smartphone addiction among medical college students in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health, 5, 4273–4277.
Singh Bhatia, M. (2008). Cell phone dependence—a new diagnostic entity. Delhi Psychiatry Journal, 11, 123–124.
Social and Research Development Centre. (2013). Internet usage habits in Yemen: Findings of an internet survey.
Song, I., Larose, R., Eastin, M., & Lynn, C. (2004). Internet gratifications and internet addiction: On the uses and abuses of new media. Cyber Psychology and Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2004.7.384.
Soto, C., John, O., Gosling, S., & Potter, J. (2011). Age differences in personality traits from 10 to 65: Big Five domains and facets in a large cross-sectional sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 330–348.
Statista. (2018). Number of mobile cellular subscriptions in Yemen. https://www.statista.com/statistics/501168/number-of-mobile-cellular-subscriptions-in-yemen/.
Takao, M., Takahashi, S., & Kitamura, M. (2009). Addictive personality and problematic mobile phone use. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 12, 501–507.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the advice of Prof. Dimitri Van der Linden. The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University for funding this work through Research Group No. RG-1438-064.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no potential conflict of interest pertaining this submission to Current Psychology.
Informed Consent
All participants were provided informed consent prior to participation to the study. All study procedures were conducted in accordance with appropriate institutional ethical review boards.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Albursan, I.S., Al Qudah, M.F., Dutton, E. et al. National, Sex and Academic Discipline Difference in Smartphone Addiction: A Study of Students in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan. Community Ment Health J 55, 825–830 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-019-00368-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-019-00368-x