Effectiveness of Smartphone Addiction Prevention Program for College Students Based on Self-Determination Theory

Sunday, 28 July 2019

Jeong Soon Yu, RN
divison of Nursing, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, Republic of (South)
Myung Soon Kwon, PhD, RN
division of nursing, Hallym University, chuncheon, Korea, Republic of (South)

  1. Background & Purpose

According to 2017 global attitude survey of the Pew research center, Korea’s smartphone ownership rate is 94% over 18 years old, which is the highest among 38 countries surveyed, which is 11% higher than Israel's 83% [1]. This suggests that it could be exposed to not only the positive effects but also the negative effects of smartphones.

The National Information Society Agency (NIA) in Korea reported 23.8% of college students' smartphone and dependency risk group in 2017, which is the largest increase compared to other age groups [2]. Korean college students are more freely to use their smartphones from adult regulations than adolescents tied to college entrance examinations. So they can be more easily exposed to smartphone addiction. This results in problems such as poor academic achievement, stress, and difficulty in adapting to college life [3]. This period is an important time to solve development tasks such as self-identity formation and job selection. Therefore, college students need mediation to help them not only prevent smartphone addiction, but also help them control their smartphone usage [4].

Self-determination theory (SDT), which is the basis of program development, is based on the assumption that human behavior is induced and maintained by intrinsic motivation, and that human intrinsic motivation can be promoted or hindered by environmental contexts. First of all, self-determination theory focuses on the fact that individual behavior is self-motivated and self-determined. In particular, basic psychological needs is an important factor for personal growth and satisfaction, it is said that the fulfillment of three needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness increases intrinsic motivation [5].

As a result of analyzing the researches related to smartphone addiction in college students in Korea, it is mainly focused on smartphone addiction related factors and research on usage behavior. And research on the development of an intervention program for the prevention of smartphone addiction and its effectiveness is very insufficient [6].

The aim of this study is to verify the effectiveness of the program by developing a program that can improve the autonomous control ability by strengthening the intrinsic motivation by achieving basic psychological needs of university students. The specific objectives of this study are as follows.

First, the experimental group that received the Smartphone Addiction Prevention Program (SAPP) and the control group that did not receive the SAPP will differ in the level of smartphone addiction, basic psychological needs, self-regulatory ability, adaptation of college life and stress index.

Second, the experimental group that received the SAPP will have different basic psychological needs, self - regulatory ability, adaptation of college life and stress index according to the level of the smartphone addiction (high risk group, general user group).

  1. Method
  • Design

This study is a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design.

  • Participants

The subjects of this study were first year students of H university in G city in Korea and they were divided in to the experimental group (n=29), and the control group (n=34).

  • Measure

1) Smartphone addiction

It was developed by NIA (2015) and consisted of 10 items and 3 sub-factors. And each item is rated in on a 4-point Likert scale. It’s a failure of control (3 items), salience (3 items) and problematic results (4 items). Scale was ≥23 for the addiction risk group and ≤22 for the general user group.

2) Basic psychological needs

Lee & Kim (2008) developed a total of 18 items and 3 sub-factors. It’s a autonomy (6 items), competence (6 items) and relatedness (6 items).

3) Self-regulatory ability

The Korean version of the Volitional Components Inventory (VCI)-short version was modified by Yoon (2007), using the VCI developed by Kuhl & Fuhrmann (1998). A total of 21 items were composed of 10 items of self-regulation mode and 11 items of volitional inhibition mode.

4) Adaptation to college life

Students adaptation to college questionnaire (SACQ) developed by Baker and Siryk (1989) and used as modified by Lee (1999). This consists of 25 items and is divided into 5 sub-factors: academic adaptation (5 items), social adaptation (5 items), emotional adaptation (5 items), physical adaptation (5 items), and attachment to college (5 items).

5) Stress index

The stress index was calculated by measuring heart rate variability (HRV). It measures using Canopy9 RSA (IEMBIO, Korea) equipment. The HRV test provided a separate room in the classroom and electrodes were attached to the index finger in a sitting position on the chair and measured for 2 minutes and 30 seconds The stress index score ranges from 1 to 10, and the higher the score, the higher the stress.

  • Research process

Data collected were from April 23, 2018 to September 14, 2018. The program was conducted twice a week, 8 times in total, and was conducted for 90 minutes per session. Data were measured at the baseline (before intervention), post-intervention, first follow-up (1st month) and the second follow-up (3rd month).

  • Statistical analysis

The data analysis were performed using SPSS 23.0 for Windows. The homogeneity test was used x2-test, Fisher's exact test, and independent sample t-test. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) was applied to examine the overall effectiveness of the intervention.

  1. Results

First, there was a significant difference between the two groups in the basic psychological needs (F=3.90, p=.010) and self-regulatory ability (F=3.11, p=.028). In the sub-factors of basic psychological needs, there was interaction between measurement time and group in the competence (F=2.93, p=.035) and relatedness (F=2.89, p=.037). The significant difference in the measurement time was the level of smartphone addiction (F=12.69, p=.000) and in the sub-factors, there was also difference between failure of control (F=20.00, p=.000) and salience (F=10.26, p=.000). Also, academic adaptation (F=7.50, p=.000), emotional adaptation (F=3.62, p=.014) and physical adaptation (F=4.53, p=.004), which are sub-factors of adaptation of college life, showed significant differences according to measurement time.

Second, there was a significant difference between the high risk group and the general user group in the experimental group in the level of smartphone addiction (F=2.98, p=.037). In terms of sub - factors, the high risk group was effective in not only smartphone addiction (F=13.44, p=.000) but also failure of control (F=9.54, p=.000) and salience (F=16.57, p=.000) which are sub - factors of smartphone addiction. And the general user group showed that failure of control (F=2.98, p=.000) of smartphone addiction, competence (F=3.12, p=.036) of basic psychological needs, self-regulatory ability (F=3.61, p=.02), academic adaptation (F=2.94, p=.044) and physical adaptation (F=3.35, p=.028) of adaptation of college life.

  1. Conclusión

This study attempts to developed a program to prevent the negative impact of smartphone by improving the control ability of smartphone which is a necessity for living in this age. According to the results, the SAPP based on the SDT developed in this study was effective in reducing the level of smartphone addiction. Especially, the general user group was verified to be effective in the basic psychological needs, self-regulatory ability and adaptation to college life. However, it was effective until 1 month after the program, and it was effective until 3 months after the intervention, but it was insignificant. Therefore, intervention should be required between 1 and 3 months after the intervention to maintain or improve the program's sustained effect.

Therefore, we must be able to overcome the limitations of the sustainable effect of the intervention program for the proper use of the smartphone that acts as an important communication medium in everyday life. In order to do this, we need curriculum of preventive education to enable repeated education within the university. It will also be necessary to develop and apply a step-by-step program of enhanced or deepened content for sustainable management.

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