Smartphone addiction and its associated behaviors among undergraduate dental students and interns

INTRODUCTION

“People are captives of their phones; thus, it is called a cell phone.” It is a common irony. Mobile phones are becoming an indispensable tool in everyday life, transforming our daily routines and leisure period. It is a double-edged sword; one side provides convenience, while the other side can profoundly harm physical and mental health if misused.^[1,2] India holds the world’s second-highest mobile connections, after China in the first half of 2024.^[3]

It has become a common observation that college-going students are found to be engaged more in using mobile phones. In the published literature, the findings reveal a huge burden of internet and mobile phone addiction such as behavior and nomophobia, among the youth of India.^[4-9]

Healthcare dental students are not different from other faculty students; they also use the Smartphone same as the other students.^[5,10,11] The college-going students utilize their mobile phone as a source of social media and as a learning tool, but if its use is limited, then it is ok. But when its use becomes uncontrolled and excessive, it may cause varied problems which include social, mental, and physical. One of these includes nomophobia.^[12]

Nomophobia is a related phenomenon, which means a feeling of discomfort, uneasiness, anxiety, nervousness, and a sort of distress when they are not with phone or related technology. The people with nomophobia are found to be in consistency in use of mobile phones, feeling of anxiety or depression when not using their phone. They become very nervous when there is no mobile coverage. Other symptoms include checking phones repeatedly for any notifications, keeping phones on the bed while sleeping, like to talk with people on the phone instead of face-to-face talking.^[13] Nomophobia is causing a negative impact on people, which affects their academic performance and their mental and physical health.^[10] Bartwal and Nath conducted their study in medical students mentioned that if the smartphone use is increased, it also increases the degree of nomophobia.^[11]

As many of the studies have been conducted in healthcare students, the authors also decided to conduct the present study among undergraduate dental students and interns of Ranjeet Deshmukh dental college (formerly VSPM Dental College) Nagpur, Maharashtra.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

RESULTS

A total number of 331 students participated in the study. Out of it, 47 were male and 284 were female. Data were entered into Microsoft Excel 2013. Frequency analysis was done on the basis of percentage analysis. To check for statistical significance, analysis was done using Software used: IBM Statistical Package for the Social Science Statistics 20.

Table 1 represents the detailed result about the students according to their gender and year of study. For MPAS scale; the division of score for addiction is not mentioned but as per the published study,^[14] the higher scorer is mentioned as the students with smartphone addiction. In the present study, for 20 questions, lowest score is 20 and the highest score is 120. Based on the scoring criteria, 156 (47%) of the students were found to have high scores indicating Smartphone addiction while 150 (53%) of the students had lower score showing mild or no addiction.

Now let’s see the result according to the questions-

Let’s examine the outcome based on the questionnaire. In the first question, 91 (21.58%) students agreed to check their smartphone as soon as they receive any notifications, while 129 (39.09%) students disagreed to check their mobile phone in light sleep. One hundred and nine (33.03%) disagree to check notifications while studying and 137 (41.52%) denied to play games while attending classes. One hundred and thirty-two (40%) students agreed to check their phones right after waking up. It’s a good response that 95 (28.79%) disagreed with having a hard time concentrating in classes due to smartphones, and 106 (32.12%) denied preferring online friends rather than hanging out with real-time friends. One hundred and thirteen (34.24%) disagreed to check their mobile phone while engaged in group participation. One hundred and thirty-one (39.7%) agreed to shorten their mobile phone usage. One hundred and twenty-three (37.27%) students disagreed that people around you claim that you are not paying enough attention to them since you are using your phone, while 139 (42.12%) denied getting annoyed if someone asked to reduce smartphone use.

One hundred and twelve (33.94%) students rejected feeling anxious when they do not use their phone, 111 (33.64%) refused being exhausted and not getting enough sleep as a result of using a phone excessively. Seventy-nine (23.94%) cannot imagine living without their mobile phone. One hundred and forty-one (42.73%) disagreed to check their mobile phone while driving or crossing the road. One hundred and seven (32.42%) refused to miss their planned work due to phone, while 136 (41.21%) disagreed with thinking about their phones when not using them. One hundred and thirty-four (40.61%) denied that they will never give up smartphones even if their daily life is affected, while 120 (36.36%) refused to constantly check their phone to not miss any conversation. On the other hand, 96 (29.09%) agreed to use their smartphones longer than they expected.

Table 2 shows the detailed results of all questions according to percentage analysis. To check the statistically significant result, Kruskal–Wallis test was used as the data of the present study represent ordinal rankings rather than continuous measurements, for analyzing differences in behavior patterns.

The level of significance was kept at < 0.05.

In out of 20 questions, statistically significant differences were observed in nine of them, where P-value was less than the conventional threshold of 0.05. The summary of Kruskal –Wallis test is shown in Table 3.

DISCUSSION

In the current scenario, today’s generation is in the grasp of mobile phone. They are spending many hours in its usage, which is causing dependency on smartphones. The present study looked at the patterns of smartphone use and potential symptoms of addiction among dental students and interns.

According to the data collected in the present study, about 156 (47%) of the students are addicted with the Smartphone which is quite similar to study^[14] where 184 (46%) of the students were found with addiction. Furthermore, about 51.5%^[19] and 24.7%^[10] of the students were found addicted to smartphones in the respective studies conducted.

In the present study, participants faced problematic smartphone use behaviors, including constantly thinking about the phone (P = 0.002) and continuing its use despite experiencing negative consequences (P = 0.026), indicating statistically significant associations. According to research conducted in Kolkata by Dasgupta et al., 42.6% of medical students evaluated using the NMP Q questionnaire had nomophobia.^[5]

In this study, interns and 2^nd-year students are more likely to impulsively check their phones during class or while studying (P = 0.010, P = 0.002). This suggests that they might be more distracted, possibly due to academic or work-related stress. In contrast to research by Arora et al.^[20] and Payne et al., 2^nd-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery students obtained the greatest scores across all smartphone addiction scale -short version scale areas.^[21]

In the literature, it is mentioned that dependency with mobile phones causes disruption in the pattern and quality of sleep.^[14,22-24] In the present study, only 52 (15.76%) of the students felt about the sleep disturbance and 41 (12.42%) check their mobile notification during light sleep on the contrary in the previously conducted study that 184 (56%) found sleep problem and 55% check social media networks in light sleep^[25] and 56% of the students felt this sleep problem in one another published study.^[26]

Excessive smartphone use among students can negatively impact concentration, academic performance, sleep quality, and social interactions. It can also lead to stress, fatigue, and lead to “Chero- phobia” which mean fear of being happy oneself. As of nowadays, students are being influenced by social media and becoming obsessed to irrelevant issues.

CONCLUSION

This study shows a moderate frequency of smartphone addiction and its related behaviors among dental students. Students tend to be especially sensitive to problematic usage habits of smartphone use but at the same the time; there are few students who tend to reduce their mobile phone usage habit. Furthermore, there is need of awareness campaigns, digital wellness programs, and the integration of mental health support services to help to mitigate the negative effects of excessive smartphone use. Future research is needed to investigate the long-term impact of smartphone addiction on academic performance and psychological well-being among students.