Vulnerability and Relationship Satisfaction: Mediation of Smartphone Addiction

Introduction

Perhaps Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, did not imagine that telephones would evolve so much, from dial, desk-set, and touch-tone telephones, to videophones, mobile phones, and now, a new generation of smartphones, which have become an integral part of our daily lives. Thanks to wireless and 4G connections, smartphones offer important advantages, like access to email, instant messaging, multimedia, and the ability to download applications (Aljomaa et al., 2016). In addition, the ease of accessing popular social media websites and planning our lives through an agenda program may be considered among the smartphone’s many advantages. The use of smartphones increases each day because of such advantages and competitive approach. Globally, the number of smartphone users has increased from 1.57 billion in 2014 to 2.71 billion in 2019 (Statista, 2019). In Turkey, the number of smartphone users now exceeds 31 million, or 38% of the total population (TRT News, 2019).

In addition to their advantages, smartphones have also caused many problems due to excessive use and their increasing popularity. In this respect, a new phenomenon has emerged, smartphone addiction, a term which has been used interchangeably with problematic mobile phone use, mobile phone addiction, and excessive smartphone use (Kim et al., 2016). In fact, thanks to the simplicity of adding new applications to a mobile phone and the addition of enhanced content, smartphone usage and addiction rates have become more widespread (Gökçearslan, Mumcu, Haşlaman, & Çevik 2016). In this study, the concept of smartphone addiction is used as the preferred terminology. Smartphone addiction can be defined as the negative effects experienced by individuals due to an inability to control their smartphone usage leading to failure in controlling their excessive usage or impulses (Liu, Yang, Lin, Yu, & Zhou, 2017).

Although smartphone addiction is a rather new concept, and is not included in the DSM, studies of this phenomenon have increased in recent years. However, the indications and consequences of smartphone addiction have not yet been fully established (Cocorada Maican, Cazan, & Maican, 2018). Young adults spend more time in virtual environments rather than forming real relationships. According to Wood’s (2018) report, young people spend mean eight-ten hours on their phones every day. As a result, questions are raised about what the causes and outcomes will be both personally and interpersonally of spending the majority of the day interacting over the phone and being this addicted to smartphones. From this aspect, it is necessary to investigate the protective factors and risk factors for smartphone addiction. However, the studies investigating the underlying causes of smartphone addiction and the outcomes of addiction are still limited in number. Motivated by this lack of research, a new data has been added to the existing literature about smartphone addiction. Additionally, as the majority of smartphone addiction studies have been conducted in East Asia (Enez-Darcin et al., 2016), this study will be completed in Turkey, which has a growing number of smartphone users, and will provide insight into the connection between smartphone addiction, vulnerability, and relationship satisfaction as experienced by young people living in Eurasia.