Mobile phone use and its threat to dependence among secondary school students – an explanatory study

Authors

UHER Ivan KACHLÍK Petr SCHUBERTOVÁ Andrea YIP Clifford TOMCZYK RUSZKIEWICZ Katarzyna KIMÁKOVÁ Tatiana

Year of publication 2023
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source ANNALS OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Education

Citation
Web Odkaz na online fulltext článku
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.26444/aaem/162402
Keywords prevention; secondary school; healthy behaviour; nomophobia; mobile phone use
Description Nomophobia (NMP) is a present-age phobia of loss of use of information and communication technologies (ICT), particularly smartphones. The study adopted a two-phase, exploratory consequential mixed methods design. The first phase was a quantitative exploration of the degree of NMP. The second mapped the potential area of risks in using modern ICT. Three working hypotheses were established to compare the opinions of secondary school students, their behaviour and degree of NMP. A 20-item anonymous questionnaire was administered to 373 boys and girls aged 14–15 in 11 randomly-selected secondary schools in the Czech Republic. The results prove that 0.5% of the subjects did not exhibit symptoms of NMP, a very mild form of NMP was detected in 71% of respondents, a mild form of NMP was detected in 18.7% of the respondents, a moderate form of NMP was detected in 7.8% of respondents, and a severe form of NMP was detected in 2% of respondents. Almost three-quarters of the students were not directly at risk of dependence on a mobile phone, but a 10th of the sample exhibited a set of symptoms of behavioural addiction. On average, respondents used 4 applications, communication programmes, social networks, and music players. Girls reported a higher dependence on mobile phones in comparison to boys. Further investigations should directly ascertain which integrands predict NMP, identifying risk groups, and developing preventive strategies (social and environmental factors) to better understand the underlying cause of NMP.
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