Investigating psychological and motivational predictors of problematic smartphone use among Smartphone-based Social Networking Service (SNS) users

Given that the active use of certain smartphone applications is associate with problematic smartphone use, it has been proposed that certain smartphone applications are more addictive than others, such as Social Networking Services (SNS). Still, studies that consider smartphone users’ main usage application which are known to influence the users’ problematic smartphone use, such as SNS, remain to be explored. Thus, the current study aims to investigate the psychological and motivational predictors of problematic smartphone use in a sample of smartphone-based SNS users whose main device usage is SNS. A series of mean comparison tests and binary logistic regression were performed in this study. Of the 433 smartphone-based SNS users, 218 were male (50.3%) and 215 were female (49.7%). Age of 433 participants ranged from 20 to 40, and mean age was 30.75 (SD = 7.84). 73 participants (16.9%) were sorted into the high-risk problematic smartphone use group and 360 participants (83.1%) were categorized as the normal user group. The finding from binary regression analysis showed that reward responsiveness from the Behavioral Activation System (BAS), a lack of self-control, and anxiety significantly increased the odds of problematic smartphone use of the smartphone-based SNS users. Reward responsiveness was found to be the most powerful predictor. Our findings broaden the existing literature and provide implications to reduce addictive smartphone use relating to smartphone-based SNS usage.