Difficulties in Establishing “Truth” Conditions in the Assessment of Addictive Smartphone Use in Young Adults

Javier García-Manglano, Claudia López-Madrigal, Charo Sádaba-Chalezquer, Cecilia Serrano and Olatz Lopez-Fernandez
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Javier García-Manglano: Institute of Culture and Society, University of Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain
Claudia López-Madrigal: School of Education and Psychology, University of Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain
Charo Sádaba-Chalezquer: School of Communication, University of Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain
Cecilia Serrano: Department of Sociology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 20123 Milan, Italy
Olatz Lopez-Fernandez: Health Research Institute, Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz, 28040 Madrid, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: The smartphone revolution has placed powerful, multipurpose devices in the hands of youth across the globe, prompting worries about the potential negative consequences of these technologies on mental health. Many assessment tools have been created, seeking to classify individuals into problematic and non-problematic smartphone users. These are identified using a cutoff value: a threshold, within the scale range, at which higher scores are expected to be associated with negative outcomes. Lacking a clinical assessment of individuals, the establishment of this threshold is challenging. We illustrate this difficulty by calculating cutoff values for the Short Version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS-SV) in 13 Spanish-speaking samples in 11 countries, using common procedures (i.e., reliability, validity, ROC methodology). After showing that results can be very heterogeneous (i.e., they lead to diverse cutoff points and rates of addiction) depending on the decisions made by the researchers, we call for caution in the use of these classifications, particularly when researchers lack a clinical definition of true addiction—as is the case with most available scales in the field of behavioral addictions—which can cause an unnecessary public health alert.

Keywords: problematic smartphone use; smartphone addiction; cutoff points; smartphone addiction scale; Spanish SAS-SV; psychological distress; depression; anxiety; stress; social media use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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