Elhai Jon D, Dvorak Robert D, Levine Jason C, Hall Brian J
Department of Psychology, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, USA.
J Affect Disord. 2017 Jan 1;207:251-259. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2016.08.030. Epub 2016 Oct 2.
Research literature on problematic smartphone use, or smartphone addiction, has proliferated. However, relationships with existing categories of psychopathology are not well defined. We discuss the concept of problematic smartphone use, including possible causal pathways to such use.
We conducted a systematic review of the relationship between problematic use with psychopathology. Using scholarly bibliographic databases, we screened 117 total citations, resulting in 23 peer-reviewer papers examining statistical relations between standardized measures of problematic smartphone use/use severity and the severity of psychopathology.
Most papers examined problematic use in relation to depression, anxiety, chronic stress and/or low self-esteem. Across this literature, without statistically adjusting for other relevant variables, depression severity was consistently related to problematic smartphone use, demonstrating at least medium effect sizes. Anxiety was also consistently related to problem use, but with small effect sizes. Stress was somewhat consistently related, with small to medium effects. Self-esteem was inconsistently related, with small to medium effects when found. Statistically adjusting for other relevant variables yielded similar but somewhat smaller effects.
We only included correlational studies in our systematic review, but address the few relevant experimental studies also.
We discuss causal explanations for relationships between problem smartphone use and psychopathology.
关于问题性智能手机使用或智能手机成瘾的研究文献大量涌现。然而，与现有精神病理学类别之间的关系尚未明确界定。我们讨论问题性智能手机使用的概念，包括导致此类使用的可能因果途径。
我们对问题性使用与精神病理学之间的关系进行了系统综述。利用学术文献数据库，我们共筛选了117篇引文，最终得到23篇同行评审论文，这些论文研究了问题性智能手机使用/使用严重程度的标准化测量与精神病理学严重程度之间的统计关系。
大多数论文研究了与抑郁、焦虑、慢性应激和/或低自尊相关的问题性使用。在这些文献中，在未对其他相关变量进行统计调整的情况下，抑郁严重程度始终与问题性智能手机使用相关，显示出至少中等效应量。焦虑也始终与问题性使用相关，但效应量较小。应激在一定程度上始终相关，效应量从小到中等。自尊的相关性不一致，发现时效应量从小到中等。对其他相关变量进行统计调整后产生了类似但略小的效应。
我们在系统综述中仅纳入了相关性研究，但也讨论了少数相关的实验研究。
我们讨论了问题性智能手机使用与精神病理学之间关系的因果解释。
