Who’s Addicted to the Smartphone and/or the Internet?
Who’s Addicted to the Smartphone and/or the Internet?
Bernd Lachmann Ulm University
Éilish Duke University of London
Rayna Sariyska Ulm University
Christian Montag Ulm University and University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China
Over the past few years, a growing amount of research has considered the links between personality and overuse (pathological use) of the Internet. Given the partial overlap between problematic Internet and smartphone use (PIU and PSU, respectively), the present study seeks to investigate whether the same personality traits can be linked to overuse of both platforms. A total of 612 participants (177 males/435 females, mostly students) completed questionnaires assessing both PIU and PSU, and the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) to measure the Five-Factor Model of Personality and the Self-Directedness scale of the Temperament and Character Inventory. Our results indicate the existence of a common personality structure linked to both PIU and PSU. Interestingly, the associations between personality and PIU were higher than those concerning PSU. Low Self-Directedness appears to be the best predictor of overuse on both digital platforms. Therefore, lower willpower anchored in the personality trait Self- Directedness may reflect the core of digital additive tendencies.
Public Policy Relevance Statement The present study suggests the presence of a common personality structure linked to both problematic Internet use and problematic smartphone use. In this regard especially, low Self-Directedness seems to be the best predictor of problematic digital use.
Keywords: personality, Self-Directedness, Internet addiction, smartphone addiction
The study of problematic smartphone use (PSU) is much younger than that of its sibling, problematic Internet use (PIU; among others, originating in the work of Young, 1998b). This is understandable, as the first commercially successful smartphone is a relatively recent introduction, originating with the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007 by Steve Jobs. Since then, the smartphone has become a runaway success. Nearly 2 billion people worldwide currently own a smartphone (cited by Miller, 2012), and people use this powerful technical device for many daily tasks including
surfing the web, navigating a new city, communicating via classic phone calls, short message services, or newer communication channels such as Whats-App and Facebook. Given the many advantages of smartphones, it is important not to (over-) patholo- gize everyday life, including smartphone usage (e.g., see the discussion of problematic Internet use by Kardefelt-Winther, 2014). Nevertheless, a growing body of research suggests the existence of a dark side of smartphone usage (Lee, Chang, Lin, & Cheng, 2014; Montag, Kannen, et al., 2015), with some work even highlighting its potentially addictive nature (Duke & Montag, 2017a; Kwon, Kim, Cho, & Yang, 2013; Kwon, Lee, et al., 2013; Lin et al., 2015).
From this perspective, one can distinguish between generalized (addictive behavior to the Internet in general) and specific (ad- dicted to an application on the Internet) Internet addiction (Brand, 2017). Davis (2001) points out that individuals suffering from generalized Internet addiction could not have developed their dysfunctional behavior (e.g., shopping, gambling, etc.) without the Internet, that is, the problematic Internet use itself determines subsequent specific problem behaviors. On the other hand, indi- viduals suffering from specific Internet addiction are using the Internet only as instrument to satisfy their needs (e.g., shopping, gambling, and gaming) but are not dependent on the Internet per se. The same problematic behavior could exist in the real world, outside of cyberspace. The phenomenon of social or peer pressure
This article was published Online First November 20, 2017. Bernd Lachmann, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm Univer-
sity; Éilish Duke, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London; Rayna Sariyska, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University; Christian Montag, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, and Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation/Center for Informa- tion in BioMedicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
The position of CM is funded by a Heisenberg grant, awarded to him by the German Research Foundation (DFG, MO2363/3-2). Moreover, the study is funded by a grant on computer and Internet gaming awarded to CM by the German Research Foundation (DFG, MO2363/2-1).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christian Montag, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Helm- holtzstr. 8/1, 89081 Ulm. E-mail: christian.montag@uni-ulm.de
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Psychology of Popular Media Culture © 2017 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 8, No. 3, 182–189 2160-4134/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000172
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000172
can further aggravate PIU (Wu, Ko, Wong, Wu, & Oei, 2016; Zhu, Zhang, Yu, & Bao, 2015), for example, when playing online games or using social network sites, mainly due to the fear of missing out (Gil, Chamarro, & Oberst, 2015).
It is also evident that smartphones often interrupt everyday life and are associated with time distortion while engaged in smart- phone use (Duke & Montag, 2017a; Lin et al., 2015). Problematic smartphone use (PSU) may also lead to a decrease in productivity (Montag & Walla, 2016). In some countries, law enforcement has banned smartphone use in situations such as driving a car, owing to the distraction of drivers from traffic and the potential for creating dangerous situations (Coben & Zhu, 2013; Falkner, 2011). Given that many users prolong their smartphone sessions even when in the relative privacy of their bedrooms (Montag, Kannen, et al., 2015), it comes as no surprise that PSU is often accompanied by poor sleep quality (Yogesh, Abha, & Priyanka, 2014) and in some cases, lower work engagement the next morning (Lanaj, Johnson, & Barnes, 2014). In the context of well-being and smart- phone use, a relatively recent study highlights the importance of including and assessing the motivation underlying people’s use of their smartphones (Ohly & Latour, 2014). Also related to well- being a recent study finds evidence for an association between PIU, life satisfaction, and commuting (during commuting the Internet will be accessed mostly via portable devices like smart- phones): A more negative attitude towards commuting was asso- ciated with higher PIU and lower life satisfaction levels (Lach- mann, Sariyska, Kannen, Stavrou, & Montag, 2017). This short summary of current literature highlights the potential negative effects of PSU in daily life and underlines the timeliness of the current research.
Two theoretical models of Internet addiction have recently been published. In their consideration of Internet gaming disorder, Dong and Potenza (2014), propose a model that emphasizes the influence of craving on the use of Internet games. Based on the work of Davis (2001), a more general model of Internet addiction has been developed by Brand, Young, and Laier (2014), which has become the basis for the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model (Brand, Young, Laier, Wölfling, & Potenza, 2016). In this model, the authors focus more on specific types of Internet addiction like shopping or gambling than generalized Internet addiction (of note they use the term Internet use disorder). Generalized Internet addiction may be described as a situation in which an individual is addicted to the Internet in general rather than to a specific application of the Internet (Brand, 2017). Of relevance to the current study, a key predisposing factor for the development of a generalized Internet addiction within this model is personality (Brand et al., 2016).
With respect to PIU, a large body of research has been con- ducted, which demonstrates the importance of a number of per- sonality dimensions in predicting PIU (see review by Montag & Reuter, 2015)1. The study of personality is important because it describes rather stable characteristics of a person, manifesting in typical emotional reactions, cognitive thinking patterns, and be- havior in everyday life (Montag & Panksepp, 2017). Moreover, personality is linked to important real-life variables, such as health behavior (Bogg & Roberts, 2004), longevity (Jackson, Connolly, Garrison, Leveille, & Connolly, 2015), and vulnerability for af- fective disorders (Lahey, 2009). Among the studied (and often highlighted) factors in the field of Internet addiction, high Self-
Directedness, a personality trait describing persons with high will- power and who are reasonably content with themselves, might represent a resilience factor against PIU (Montag et al., 2011; Montag, Jurkiewicz, & Reuter, 2010; Sariyska et al., 2014). Be- yond these results, several other research findings indicate that the personality dimensions Neuroticism (positively linked; Hardie & Tee, 2007) and Conscientiousness (negatively linked; Montag et al., 2010) must be mentioned to understand PIU and PSU.
Recently, a questionnaire has been published to assess smart- phone addiction: Kwon, Kim, et al. (2013) and Kwon, Lee, et al. (2013) have also demonstrated that there is an overlap between Internet and smartphone addiction but that this overlap is far from perfect. In their questionnaire, several facets of PSU are consid- ered, including daily life disturbance, positive anticipation of smartphone usage, withdrawal symptoms in absence of the smart- phone, cyberspace-oriented…
