Personality Tests, Usage Patterns, Occurrence And Smartphone Addiction Among Students Of Higher Education System In Chengalpattu District Of Tamilnadu State.

Abstract

Background: Overuse of smartphones by the students of higher education institutes lands them with serious problems such as smartphone addiction, blurred vision, wrist or back pain, neck stiffness and abnormality in sleeping.

Objectives: This study is to demonstrate the effects of excessive smartphone use, addiction among college students and to understand smartphone usage patterns as well as the relationships between these variables and personality traits using an online questionnaire.

Methods: Students(n=365) of both sex studying in various higher education institutions in the local district were approached and explained about the study by the student investigator. Students who volunteered for the study were shared with the study questionnaire designed in google forms and were asked to submit their responses. Three proformas, one for sociodemographic information, second for smartphone addiction scale – short version and another one for Dimensional personality inventory were administered. Tests such as “Descriptive statistics”, “Independent T Test” and multiple “Regression Analysis” were done, where the “Statistical Significance” was measured to be at p <0.05.

Result: Excessive usage of smartphone addiction among students was recognized to be 48.28% while the majority risk rate regarding the addiction was high in males (25.84%) compared to the females (22.44%). From the result, it was found that the majority has been utilising smartphones for many years, till morning as some personal smartphone functions has increased their addiction level (p<0.05). There are several prominent individual traits, connected to students’ smartphone addiction  such as “Activity-Passivity”, “Enthusiastic-nonenthusiastic”, “Assertive-submissive”, “Depressive-non-depressive”, and “Suspicious-trusting” (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Patterns and personality traits found significantly  associated with the addiction level also showed some unique patterns. The proposed individual traits such as  “Activity- passivity”, “Enthusiastic-non enthusiastic”, “Assertive-submissive”, “Suspicious-trusting”, “Depressive- non depressive” and long-term usage of smartphone are the major influensive factors harming health of students.