Risk of Mobile Phone Addiction in Secondary School Pupils
Risk of Mobile Phone Addiction in Secondary School Pupils

Author(s): Petr Kachlík
Subject(s): Media studies, School education, Health and medicine and law, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: questionnaire; mobile phone; nomophobia; prevention; risk; school; research; health; addiction; pupil;
Summary/Abstract: Background: the urge to use mobile devices constantly and anxiety that might come in case of impossibility to use them, represent one of the forms of behavioral addictions, the so-called nomophobia. Nomophobia negatively affects all attributes of human health, seriously affects its mental, physical and social components. Objectives: the main objective of the research was to determine the degree of nomophobia in a sample of secondary school students, the partial objective was to map potentially risky areas with the use of modern information and communication technologies. Methods: a quantitative method was chosen to carry out the survey, and an anonymous questionnaire containing a standardized core was used as a research tool. It consisted of 20 items focused on respondents' reactions in situations where communication links are not available or cannot be used. The survey was conducted in the eighth and ninth grades of 11 randomly selected primary schools in the Hradec Králové region. Data were obtained from 373 respondents with a balanced representation of boys and girls. 3 working hypotheses were established to compare the opinions, behavior and degree of nomophobia between boys and girls. The answers were evaluated by methods of descriptive statistics, Student's t-test was used to analyze the hypotheses. Results: 0.5% of respondents did not show symptoms of nomophobia, a very mild and moderate form was recorded in 70% of respondents, mild form in 18% of the group, moderate in 8% and severe in 2% of respondents. Almost three-fourths of the students were not directly at risk of dependence on a mobile, but a tenth of the sample showed serious problems of a behavioral addiction nature. Respondents used an average of 4 applications, mainly communication programs, social networks and music players. Conclusions: girls in the sample showed a higher rate of nomophobia than boys. The biggest differences in responses were mainly for fears of not being able to communicate immediately with family or friends.

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