ABSTRACT
Cyberpsychological research suggests that interaction with and use of smartphones influences personal wellbeing and psychosocial development. Studies indicate that (a) the ways in which individuals manage their attachment to devices influences personal development, (b) greater smartphone attachment is associated with higher anxiety levels, and (c) personality differences might mediate this association. We investigated whether self-compassion (i.e. being kind and non-judgmental to oneself) might be such a mediating factor, and whether this mediational relationship differed between digital natives (n = 104, 18–25 years) and digital immigrants (n = 117, 30–60 years). Participants completed standardised scales measuring trait anxiety, self-compassion, and smartphone attachment/use. The mediational hypothesis was confirmed for digital natives only, suggesting that among these participants (who reported significantly higher anxiety levels) higher levels of self-compassion can provide a healthy buffer between psychological distress and unhealthy smartphone attachment. We conclude that programmatic self-compassion interventions could buffer negative developmental consequences of unhealthy smartphone attachment.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Emerging adulthood is a developmental phase that stretches from late adolescence until approximately the age of 25 (Arnett Citation2000).
2 This study avoids casting frequent cellphone use as an ‘addiction’, because this rhetoric has negative and possibly stigmatising implications. Furthermore, any statement that individuals who use their phones regularly are ‘addicts’ implies that smartphones are exclusively bad, and neglects their beneficial aspects (see, e.g., Ahn & Jung Citation2014; Stern & Burke Odland Citation2017).