SynthesisInternational journal of environmental research and public health2020
Does Smartphone Addiction Fall on a Continuum of Addictive Behaviors?
Synthesis in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Association between smartphone addiction, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt: a systematic review.PeerJ · 2026Pooled it
- Risk Factors, Health Consequences, and Professional Work of Problematic Mobile Phone Use Among Nurses: A Systematic Review.Journal of nursing management · 2026Pooled it
- Neuropsychological Deficits in Disordered Screen Use Behaviours: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Association between Problematic Use of Smartphones and Mental Health in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Depressive and mobile phone addiction symptoms in Chinese adolescents with major depressive disorder: the mediating effect of alexithymia.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Perfectionism, obsessive-compulsory behaviour, and anxiety in young adults: a moderated mediation model of mobile phone addiction.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Problematic Smartphone Use Is Associated With Current and Previous Major Depressive Disorder.Psychiatry investigation · 2025Article
- Effect of Loneliness on Psychological Depression of Adolescent Smartphone Addicts: The Mediating Role of Interpersonal Trust.Iranian journal of public health · 2025Article
- Flourishing through Social Development Activities and Social Support: A Holistic Strategy for Problematic Smartphone Use.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2025Article
- Observational
- Construction and validation of the motives for smartphone use questionnaire.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Article
- Impact of Mobile Phone Usage on Sleep Quality Among Medical Students Across Latin America: Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Ultrasonographic evaluation of neck extensor muscle thickness in smartphone users.Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992) · 2025Article
- Smartphone addiction as a risk factor for medication non-adherence in renal transplant recipients.Archives of medical science : AMS · 2025Article
- Smartphone-based activity research: methodology and key insights.Frontiers in surgery · 2025Article
- The Influence of Negative Emotions on Mobile Phone Addiction Among Chinese College Students: The Mediating Role of Negative Coping Styles and the Moderating Role of Gender.Psychology research and behavior management · 2025Article
- The associations among type D personality and nomophobia, metacognitions about smartphone use, smartphone addiction in Chinese university freshmen: a two-wave study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Linking Self-Esteem to Problematic Mobile Phone Use: A Moderated Mediation Model of Fear of Missing Out and Ruminative Subtypes.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Sports and exercise-related smartphone use is antagonistic to hedonic use in regular exercisers: A cross-sectional study examining the roles of exercise frequency and duration.Health science reports · 2024Article
- Smartphone usage and overdependence risk among middle-aged and older adults: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Due to the high accessibility and mobility of smartphones, widespread and pervasive smartphone use has become the social norm, exposing users to various health and other risk factors. There is, however, a debate on whether addiction to smartphone use is a valid behavioral addiction that is distinct from similar conditions, such as Internet and gaming addiction. The goal of this review is to gather and integrate up-to-date research on measures of smartphone addiction (SA) and problematic smartphone use (PSU) to better understand (a) if they are distinct from other addictions that merely use the smartphone as a medium, and (b) how the disorder(s) may fall on a continuum of addictive behaviors that at some point could be considered an addiction. A systematic literature search adapted from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method was conducted to find all relevant articles on SA and PSU published between 2017 and 2019. A total of 108 articles were included in the current review. Most studies neither distinguished SA from other technological addictions nor clarified whether SA was an addiction to the actual smartphone device or to the features that the device offers. Most studies also did not directly base their research on a theory to explain the etiologic origins or causal pathways of SA and its associations. Suggestions are made regarding how to address SA as an emerging behavioral addiction.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.