Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
Journal of Advances in Information Technology
Publication Date
2-1-2023
Abstract
This study examined the effects of gender, age, objective smartphone usage data, and Emotional Intelligence (EI) on Problematic Internet Use (PIU) and its components (obsession, neglect, and control disorder). The study relied on objective data of smartphone usage as a representative of technology use collected by a monitoring application of smartphone usage. PIU and EI were measured through the Problematic Internet Usage Questionnaire short form (PIUQ-SF-6) and Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form (TEIQue-SF), respectively. The current cross-sectional study was carried out with 268 participants (Female: 61.6%, ages from 15 to 64) from ten different countries. The analysis was performed using multiple linear regression. The results of the multiple regression models showed that gender and age did not reveal a significant influence on PIU or its components. Smartphone usage had a positive and significant effect on PIU, while EI inversely and significantly affected PIU and accounted for 24.6% of PIU total variance. Similarly, smartphone usage and EI significantly affected the PIU components, accounting for 15.9% of obsession variance, 12.9% of neglect variance, and 16.4% of control disorder variance. Our findings contribute to the literature by objectively evaluating the influence of time spent using the internet on PIU. It is one of the first studies to rely on objectively measured smartphone usage data and compare findings to previous studies that relied on self-reported data. When used to regulate usage, the monitoring applications of smartphone usage should be better contextualized to reflect users’ psychometrics.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
Engineering and Technology Publishing
Volume
14
Issue
1
First Page
85
Last Page
93
Disciplines
Computer Sciences
Keywords
emotional intelligence, internet addiction, objective smartphone usage, problematic internet use
Scopus ID
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Alshakhsi, Sameha; Chemnad, Khansa; Almourad, Mohamed Basel; Altuwairiqi, Majid; McAlaney, John; and Ali, Raian, "The Impact of Objectively Recorded Smartphone Usage and Emotional Intelligence on Problematic Internet Usage" (2023). All Works. 5710.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/5710
Indexed in Scopus
yes
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series