Smartphone addiction linked to anxiety, depression: Study

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London: Are you addicted to your smartphone? Well, nowadays most of the people are hooked to their phones.

A new study has found that people who are less emotionally stable and suffer from anxiety and depression are more likely to be addicted to their smartphones.

Emotional stability is characterised by being emotionally resilient.

The findings found that being less emotionally stable was associated with problematic smartphone behaviour.

People who struggle with their mental health are more likely to use their smartphone as a form of therapy and that the less conscientious individuals are, the more likely they are to be addicted to their phones.

The research showed, as the levels of anxiety increase, problematic smartphone use also increases.

Zaheer Hussain, Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Derby in Britain, said in a statement, "Problematic smartphone use is more complex than previously thought and our research has highlighted the interplay of various psychological factors in the study of smartphone use."

Hussain added,"This is because people may be experiencing problems in their lives such as stress, anxiety, depression, family problems, so in that state they are emotionally unstable, meaning they may seek respite in very excessive smartphone use. This is worrying."

For the study, a team of psychologists conducted an online study with 640 smartphone users, aged between 13-69 years, to find out the association between smartphone use and personality traits.

The results showed that people who are "closed off" or less open with their emotions are more likely to have problems with smartphone use.

"They may be engaging in passive social network use, where you spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, browsing other peoples' comments, pictures, and posts, and not posting anything of your own and not engaging in discussion with others, so there is no real positive social interaction while social networking," Hussain noted.

(With IANS inputs)