Relationship between chronotype, proneness towards smartphone addiction and nomophobia among university students

Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between chronotype, proneness towards smart phone addiction, and nomophobia among university students. Sample comprised of university students including male (n=174) and female (n =193) students from different universities of Islamabad. The age range of sample was 18 to 31 years. Instruments used in the present study were nomophobia questionnaire (Yildirim, 2013), smart phone addiction proneness scale (Kim et aI., 2014), and composite scale of momingness (Smith, Reily, and Midkiff 1989) which measures nomophobia, proneness towards smart phone addiction and chronotype respectively Study was completed in two phases, phase one was intended to evaluate the language comprehension and cultural appropriateness for all the instruments. Phase two was the main study in which objectives and hypotheses of the research were assessed. Result showed that proneness towards smart phone addiction, nomophobia and chronotype (low score indicates eveningness) were positively correlated with each other. Proneness towards smart phone addiction was found significant predict of nomophobia. Females scored high on proneness towards smart phone addiction which shows that females have more chance to become smart phone addicted. No significant result was found on group differences of family system which shows that nuclear and joint family system have equal chance to become nomophobic. Student who use data package score high on nomophobia. Furthermore result revealed that students who use smart phone for different purposes and in varying context score high on proneness towards smart phone addiction and nomophobia.