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Smartphone Addiction and Beyond: Initial Insights on an Emerging Research Topic and Its Relationship to Internet Addiction

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Internet Addiction

Abstract

The present chapter considers early insights on some pressing issues in the investigation of smartphone (over)use. More specifically, we consider whether tendencies toward overuse of the smartphone and Internet are related. And, if so, whether the same personality structure represents a vulnerability factor for both kinds of digital addiction. This chapter also identifies some similarities and differences between Internet and smartphone overuse, beyond the findings from personality psychology. Finally, the chapter provides a short overview of the important relationship between smartphone use, flow experience at work, and productivity issues. This section is followed by a simple behaviorist model, which aims to explain the aetiogenesis of problematic smartphone use. The chapter closes with some easy to implement therapeutic interventions designed to reduce smartphone use in order to live more meaningful lives in the here and now.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    To our knowledge only one recent paper had used neuroscience methods to investigate “smartphone addiction” at time of print. This study used electroencephalography to demonstrate that excessive smartphone users were characterized by a more negative N2 amplitude when confronted with NoGo trials on a Go/NoGo task. This may be interpreted as indicative of difficulties with early stage inhibitory processing among smartphone addicts (Chen et al. 2016), however, more work is needed to draw any strong conclusions in this respect. Finally, we would like to point to a recent published molecular framework to study smartphone addiction, which might guide researchers to disentangle the molecular underpinnings of smartphone overuse in the future (Montag et al. in press).

  2. 2.

    In Internet addiction research it has been demonstrated that generalized and specific forms of Internet addiction such as overuse of online video games or online pornography only overlap in small proportions (Montag et al. 2015a, b). Moreover, we would like to mention that in the following text we use the terms “smartphone addiction”, “problematic smartphone use”, etc. somewhat exchangeably, because until now this new phenomenon has been not properly defined.

  3. 3.

    Information taken from the website http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/smombie-ist-jugendwort-des-jahres-a-1062671.html (website accessed in 21th July 2016).

  4. 4.

    Information taken from the website http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/05/texting-while-walking-banned-in-new-jersey-town/ (website accessed in 21th July 2016).

  5. 5.

    One idea would be to restrict usage to a certain time window—such as between 17.00 and 18.00 h. The children know that everyone will be online in this time window but not around this time frame. This of course can only be achieved by a concerted action by parents. The attraction of the smartphone for most young people lies only in the access it permits to friends, e.g. online chatting. In contrast, if everyone is out playing soccer, the smartphone will be much less attractive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK

    Éilish Duke

  2. Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany

    Christian Montag

  3. Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation/Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

    Christian Montag

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  1. Éilish Duke
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Correspondence to Christian Montag .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology and Education, Molecular Psychology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany

    Christian Montag

  2. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Martin Reuter

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Duke, É., Montag, C. (2017). Smartphone Addiction and Beyond: Initial Insights on an Emerging Research Topic and Its Relationship to Internet Addiction. In: Montag, C., Reuter, M. (eds) Internet Addiction. Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavioral Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46276-9_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46276-9_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46275-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46276-9

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