Smartphone addiction and application usage in Korean adolescents: Effects of mediation strategies

We examined adolescent application usage related to smartphone addiction and also explored mediation strategies used to prevent their addiction. Participants were 3,000 adolescents in grades 7 to 12 who completed an online survey. According to the findings, frequent use of social networking site applications (apps), game apps, and video apps tended to exacerbate adolescents’ addiction to smartphones. Mediation strategies negatively related to smartphone addiction were active parental mediation for young adolescent girls, technical restrictions for young adolescent boys, and limited service plans for both these groups. Parental restriction tended to increase the likelihood of smartphone addiction. Addiction prevention programs being implemented in schools did not have any impact in preventing addiction. Overall, our findings suggest that the effects of mediation strategies are weak and these effects are limited to young adolescents.