Dependency on Smartphone Use and its Association with Anxiety in Korea

Objective.South Korea has the highest rate of smartphone ownership worldwide, which is a potential concern given that smartphone dependency may have deleterious effects on health. We investigated the relationship between smartphone dependency and anxiety.Methods.Participants included 1,236 smartphone-using students (725 men and 511 women) from six universities in Suwon, South Korea. Participants completed measures of smartphone use, smartphone dependency, anxiety, and general characteristics (i.e., demographic, health-related, and socioeconomic characteristics). To measure smartphone dependency and anxiety, we used questionnaires of Yang's test developed from Young's Internet Addiction Test and Zung's Self-Rating Anxiety Scale. We used multiple logistic regression to determine the association between smartphone dependency and anxiety after adjusting for relevant factors.Results.On a scale from 25 to 100, with higher scores on the smartphone dependency test indicating greater dependency, women were signifi...