Predictors of problematic smartphone use among university students

Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica

Psychology: Research and Review

Table 1 Participant characteristics, smartphone usage patterns, and smartphone addiction scores of 257 Brazilian university students

Characteristics	n	%	SAS-BR scores Mean ± SD		p value		Effect size
Gender				t = 3.886	< 0.001^a	d = 0.54	Moderate
Female	187	72.8	101.74 ± 26.56
Male	70	27.2	88.01 ± 24.69
Family monthly income (BRL)^c				F = 1.953	0.073^b	η² = 0.04	Small
< 2000	10	3.9	104.00 ± 16.02
2000–2999	16	6.2	94.75 ± 20.01
3000–3999	26	10.1	93.77 ± 24.11
4000–4999	24	9.3	94.79 ± 23.82
5000–9999	59	23.0	90.34 ± 27.88
10,000–20,000	69	26.8	104.33 ± 26.07
> 20,000	53	20.6	101.68 ± 30.22
University major				F = 0.400	0.753²	η² < 0.01	NS
Humanities	124	48.2	98.04 ± 27.08
Natural sciences	43	16.7	94.49 ± 21.96
Formal and applied sciences	7	2.7	103.14 ± 26.00
Not informed	83	32.3	99.34 ± 28.69
Smartphone model				F = 10.850	< 0.001²	η² = 0.08	Moderate
iPhone	147	57.2	104.33 ± 27.20
Samsung	61	23.7	91.75 ± 22.47
Others	49	19.1	86.82 ± 25.08
Uses WhatsApp				-	-	-	-
Yes	257	100	98.00 ± 26.73
No	0	0	-
Uses Facebook				t = 1.259	0.295¹	d = 0.35	Small
Yes	246	95.7	98.37 ± 26.90
No	11	4.3	89.73 ± 22.06
Uses Instagram				t = 5.716	< 0.001¹	d = 0.92	Large
Yes	219	85.2	101.21 ± 26.40
No	38	14.8	79.53 ± 20.64
Uses Snapchat				t = 3.623	< 0.001¹	d = 0.46	Small
Yes	109	42.4	104.86 ± 25.84
No	148	57.6	92.95 ± 26.23
Uses smartphone for work^d				t = 0.592	0.554¹	d = 0.08	NS
Yes	189	73.5	98.63 ± 26.70
No	67	26.1	96.37 ± 27.11

BRL Brazilian Reais, SAS-BR Brazilian Portuguese version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale, SD Standard deviation
^aStudent’s t test
^bOne-way ANOVA
^cAt the time of the study, 1 BRL ≅ 0.315 USD
^dOne participant did not answer