The Mediating Effects of Loneliness on the Relationship between Smartphone Addiction and Dependent Personality Trait in Adults

Ok, Jeung

Abstract

BACKGROUND
As the number of smartphone users is increasing, smartphone addiction is a recent concern. The purpose of the present study was to examine the mediating effect of loneliness on the relationship between smartphone addiction and dependent/ avoidant personality trait in Adults.
METHODS
A total of 550 adults (male 116, female 434) were selected and rated smartphone addiction scale, dependent and avoidant personality trait scales, and loneliness scale. Pearson correlation coefficients, Structural Equation Model Analysis and Sobel test using SPSS version 21.0 (IBM, New York, NY, USA) and AMOS version 21.0 (IBM, New York, NY, USA) were conducted.
RESULTS
Dependent and avoidant personality significantly were related smartphone addiction and loneliness. Finding in structural equation modeling indicated that the loneliness partially mediated the relationship between dependent personality and smartphone addiction, but did not mediated the relationship between avoidant personality and smartphone addiction.
CONCLUSIONS
This study confirmed partial mediation effect of loneliness on the relationship between smartphone addiction and dependent personality. This finding suggests that future intervention for smartphone addiction should focus on reducing of loneliness and proper coping with loneliness.