Abstract

Influence of Smartphone Addiction and use of Texting Applications on Quality of Life among Under Graduate Students

Author(s): Farida Husaini, Nasheed Imtiaz

The smart-phone is the most adopted electronic devices among all individuals irrespective of age. Mobile-phone was initially invented as the wireless phone for the convenience of users. It was made user friendly in the sense that the user can easily communicate and carry his/her conversation instrument. Later, with the fast-pace of development, mobile-phone upgraded into smart-phone, shrinking the world and making interaction more fancy and easy. The most common feature that smart-phone offer is texting with the help of various applications along with access to social networking sites and internet. Smart-phone, on the one hand, has made our life easy and friendly and on the other, it has chained individuals to behavioural addiction called nomophobia. The use of smart-phone is so satisfying that it lead to emotional and behavioural satisfaction and at the same time it may result in declining quality of life and poor mental health due to heavy mental and social load leading to addiction. The most affected population among all is adolescents because this is the age of dynamic social adventure, where individuals are trying to identify and prove themselves with respect to society. As in this age, children face identity as well as authority issues; thus, they tend to get satisfaction through virtual relationships like friends on face-book, what’s app, etc. These dependencies on such sites make them addicted for texting and moreover, to smart-phone paving way to destructive growing rather than constructive development. Thus, the present investigator in the present paper has aimed is to study impact of smart-phone addiction and various applications of texting on quality of life. The outcome of the study has been comprehensively discussed in view of increasing scenario of the use of the smart-phone and its growing detrimental impact on the quality of life and mental health leading to increased stress and depressive effects on adolescents.