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In many countries, smartphones have rapidly come into widespread use. In Japan, the uptake has been particularly prominent among people in their twenties (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2019). The rapid dissemination of smartphones has given rise to a number of social issues, including objectionable use in public places and excessive use or even dependence. Viewing problematic smartphone use as a type of technostress, the authors developed a new scale for gauging the smartphone dependence of university students, the Wakayama Smartphone-Dependence Scale (WSDS), and confirmed its reliability and validity (Toda et al., 2015b).
Previous studies on university students suggest that smartphone dependence may be associated with health problems such as lower sleep quality (Alzhrani et al., 2023; Demirci et al., 2015; Ibrahim et al., 2018; Kao, 2023), higher perceived stress (Alzhrani et al., 2023; Verma et al., 2023), and depression (Demirci et al., 2015; Desouky & Abu-Zaid, 2020; Shi et al., 2023; Zhong et al., 2022), as well as behavioral problems such as lower attention during learning (Kao, 2023; Sumuer & Kaşıkcı, 2022), poorer academic performance (Amez & Baert, 2020; Ibrahim et al., 2018; Sunday et al., 2021; Verma et al., 2023), and various accidents (Kim et al., 2017; Rosenthal et al., 2022). It is, therefore, important to elucidate the mechanism of smartphone dependence and to develop strategies to reduce the harmful consequences of smartphone dependence. Incidentally, some previous studies have found a higher risk of smartphone dependence for those who identify as female than those who identify as male university students (Alzhrani et al., 2023; Demirci et al., 2015; Desouky & Abu-Zaid, 2020; Mansourian et al., 2014).
In a previous study using the WSDS, the authors have found, particularly for those who identify as female university students, that types of childhood maternal relationships may be associated with smartphone dependence (Toda et al., 2018). From these results, the authors surmised that loneliness might lead to smartphone dependence. Several previous studies have found a positive relationship between smartphone dependence and loneliness (Bian & Leung, 2015; Du et al., 2023; Kao, 2023; Malaeb et al., 2022; Noh & Shim, 2024; Sönmez et al., 2021; Verma et al., 2023; Yilmaz et al., 2022). Furthermore, a recent meta-analysis study indicated a moderate positive association (Ge et al., 2023). Meanwhile, a negative relationship (Nguyen et al., 2022) and no relationship (Aktürk et al., 2018) were also observed. In another study, it has been found that emotional loneliness, but not social loneliness, is positively associated with smartphone dependence (Alzhrani et al., 2023). This inconsistency may be due to the contribution of multiple factors of associations between smartphone dependence and loneliness.