Smartphone addiction and personality traits among Lebanese adults: the mediating role of self-esteem

ABSTRACT

Smartphone usage in Lebanon is increasing constantly. Lebanese population especially university students were described to be at a higher risk of smartphone addiction compared to the general population. To our knowledge there has been no study in the literature that investigated the mediating effect of self-esteem when assessing personality traits and smartphone addiction in young adults. The aim of our study was to assess factors associated with smartphone addiction and investigate the mediating role of self-esteem in the association between smartphone addiction and personality traits. A cross-sectional study was carried out between August and September 2020, during the lockdown period imposed by the government for the COVID-19 pandemic and that coincides with the summer season vacation for most Lebanese, using a sample of community-dwelling participants aged 18 to 29 years. The snowball technique was followed for participants’ recruitment. The results showed that the mean age of the participants was 22.25 ± 2.87 years, with 70.9% females. The results showed that 216 (46.9%) of the participants had smartphone addiction. Higher negative emotionality (Beta = 0.17) was significantly associated with more smartphone addiction, whereas higher self-esteem (Beta = −0.37) and household crowding index (Beta = −1.58) were significantly associated with less smartphone addiction. Self-esteem mediated the association between negative emotionality and smartphone addiction. Lebanese young adults were found to be at a high risk of smartphone addiction. These results might serve as a first step towards implementing preventive measures to reduce smartphone addiction. Improving face to face communication, as well as setting specific time for cell phone usage might help reduce the development of addictive behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality traits
• smartphone
• addiction
• self-esteem
• Lebanon

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all participants who agreed to participate in this study and Dr Christopher Soto for giving us the permission to use the Big Five Inventory scale. Special thanks to Dr. Hala Sacre for her help in building the project survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross Ethics and Research Committee approved the study protocol (HPC-033-2020). The purpose and requirements of the study were explained to each participant prior to participation; submitting the form online was considered equivalent to obtaining a written informed consent from each participant.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are not publicly available to maintain the privacy of the individuals’ identities. The dataset supporting the conclusions is available upon request to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

ES wrote the paper; SH and SO designed the study; SH carried out the analysis and interpreted the results; MA involved in the data collection; PS reviewed the paper for intellectual content; all authors read and approved the final manuscript; SO and SH were the project supervisors.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.