A Cross-Sectional Survey on Smartphone Usage Pattern, the Level of Mobile Phone Dependence and Psychosocial Effects among Undergraduate Students in a Malaysian University

ABSTRACT Objective Problematic smartphone use (PSU) is the development of pathological dependence at the expense of performing activities of daily living, thus having a negative health and psychosocial impact on the users. Previous PSU studies focused on medical students and little is known regarding its effect on students undergoing other fields of study. The objective of this study is to identify the pattern of smartphone usage and determine the psychosocial factors affecting PSU among undergraduate students in Malaysia and compare the pattern among different fields of study. Method A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted using validated Smartphone Addiction Scale–Malay version (SAS-M) questionnaire. One-way ANOVA was used to determine the correlation between the patterns of smartphone usage among the students categorised by their ethnic groups, hand dominance and by their field of study. MLR analysis was applied to predict PSU based on socio-demographic data, smartphone usage patterns, psychosocial factors and field of study. Results A total of 1060 students completed the questionnaire. The majority of students had PSU (60.7%). Students used smartphones predominantly to access SNAs, namely Instagram. Longer duration on the smartphone per day (≥ 9 hours), age at first using a smartphone and depression carried higher risk of developing PSU, whereas the field of study (science vs. arts based) did not contribute to an increased risk of developing PSU. Conclusion Findings from this study can help better inform university administrators about at-risk groups of undergraduate students who may benefit from targeted intervention designed to reduce their addictive behavior patterns.