Should We Be Worried about Smartphone Addiction? An Examination of Canadian Adolescents’ Feelings of Social Disconnection in the Time of COVID-19

Natasha Parent, Bowen Xiao, Claire Hein-Salvi and Jennifer Shapka
Additional contact information
Natasha Parent: Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Bowen Xiao: Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Claire Hein-Salvi: Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Jennifer Shapka: Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 15, 1-10

Abstract: As the COVID-19 global pandemic limited face-to-face social contact, mental health concerns increased for adolescents. Additionally, many adolescents turned to technology to communicate with their peers, which also raised concerns about adolescent smartphone addiction. However, research has yet to examine how mental health and technology engagement are related to adolescents’ feelings of social connection—an important developmental predictor of wellbeing across the lifespan. Specifically, little is known regarding the relative risk of adolescents’ mental health concerns, a known risk factor for social disconnection and isolation and smartphone addiction in contributing to feelings of social disconnection in the time of COVID-19. The present study investigated how mental health outcomes and smartphone addiction contributed to Canadian adolescents’ ( n = 1753) feelings of social disconnection during COVID-19. Between October 2020 and May 2021, data were collected from five secondary schools in and around the lower mainland of British Columbia using an online-administered self-report questionnaire. Adolescents responded to questions about their smartphone addiction, internalizing problems, and an open-ended question about their feelings of connection to others. Findings from logistic regression analyses indicated that depression was a predictor of feeling socially disconnected: however, smartphone addiction was not associated with feelings of social disconnection during COVID-19. Implications of these findings can help inform the development of prevention programs targeting adolescents at risk for social disconnection in times of increased social isolation (e.g., a global pandemic). Specifically, these findings suggest that adolescents higher in depressive symptoms, and not those higher in smartphone addiction, are the ones most at risk.

Keywords: smartphone addiction; COVID-19; mental health; adolescents; social disconnection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9365/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9365/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:15:p:9365-:d:876611

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().