Smartphone Addiction in University Students and its

Implication for Learning

Jeongmin Lee1,*, Boram Cho1, Youngju Kim1, & Jiyea Noh1

1
Educational Technology Department, College of Education, Ewha Womans University,
Seoul, Korea.
jeongmin@ewha.ac.kr

Abstract. As smartphones are getting popular, a concern for smartphone

learner’s addiction to their phones has been raised together with the
possibility of Smart Learning. This research is focu sed on the level of
university students’ addiction to their smartphones and to understand
the difference between self-regulated learning, learning flow, based on
smartphone addiction level. After 210 students of university students in
Seoul were participated in this research, it has been found that the higher
the addiction level is, the lower level of self -regulated learning the
students have, as well as low level of flow when studying. Further
interview for smartphone addiction group was conducted, it has been
found that the smartphone addict – learners are constantly interrupted
by the other applications on the phones when they are studying, and does
not have enough control over their smartphone learning plan and its
process.

Keywords: smartphone addiction, Self-regulated Learning, Learning

flow

1 Introduction

Since Smartphone came in Korea, the number of users exceeds 67% of the citizen and ha
s become popular [19]. The information and communication environment changed rapidly a
s appearance of Smart device such as Smartphone [13]. Now, People was able to connect in
ternet anywhere and anytime using Smart phone. Furthermore, people could select best cont
ents among the various apps and communicate in real time using social network service. Th
e way of learning information in our daily life has been changed by feature of smart devices,
as well as leisure, finance, and wide variety of the world at large. Especially, in education f
ield, people used Smart device as instrumental in learning and then the term appeared 'Smar

 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 297

G. Chen et al. (eds.), Emerging Issues in Smart Learning,
Lecture Notes in Educational Technology, DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-44188-6_40
298 J. Lee et al.

t learning'. Smart learning's educational value emerged because learner able to study using s
uitable level contents with others in real time in daily life and it gave a chance to remove bo
undary between learning and daily life.
However, excessive use of Smartphone made an appearance of Smartphone addiction wit
h social problem. The user of Smartphone addiction were nervous and anxious without Sma
rtphone in daily life and they suffered the symptoms that people could not stop using a Sma
rtphone and it leads problem in daily life. Actually, based on the research data for 10693 us
er of Smartphone in National Information Society Agency (2012), Smartphone addiction rat
e was 11.1% between age of 10 and 49. Hence, Smartphone addiction rate was really increa
sing than last year rate (2.7%). Especially, there were high addiction rate on 20s who were u
sually leaning in daily than other age. The 20s addiction rate was 13.6%. In response to the
trend, recently, there were conducted research to investigate cause of Smartphone addiction
level and effect for adolescent and undergraduate student and there were previous research t
hat high Smartphone addiction had trouble with metal health and school life. Even though s
martphone addiction level can affect learning for students who spent daily life most in study
ing, there were no research on smartphone addiction level and learning. Therefore, this rese
arch is focused on the level of university students’ addiction to their smartphones and to und
erstand the difference between self-regulated learning, learning flow, based on smartphone
addiction level. Concrete research questions for this study are as follows:
Research question 1. Is there any difference on self-regulated learning based on the level
of smartphone addiction (at-risk user group/general group)?
Research question 2. Is there a difference on learning flow according to the smartphone a
ddiction level (at -risk user group/general group)?

2 Theoretical background

2.1 Smartphone addiction level

Smartphone addiction level researches were on the initial stage. There were common
definition about smartphone addiction level but, recently, many researchers recognized that
it was different concept internet addiction or mobile addiction and then, they tried to define
smartphone addiction level. Hwang & Son & Choi(2011) defined that smartphone addiction
level means dependence about smartphone and condition which used obsessionally and it
Smartphone Addiction in University Students and Its … 299

caused daily life’s inconvenience[27]. In other word, it was condition which made daily life’s
barrier because people were absorbed much time in Smartphone. In addition, Yoon et
al.(2011) defined that it increased smartphone usage time gradually and if they don’t have
smartphone, they felt anxiety and nervousness and, they couldn’t concentrate on their
work[18]. National information society agency (2011) conducted that they developed
smartphone addiction testing when increased smartphone addiction problem socially [22]. In
this research explained that smartphone addiction concept was different with internet and
mobile addiction. They added differential concept due to the smartphone characteristic on
smartphone addiction testing. Thus, smartphone addiction level included internet addiction’s
common addiction concept such as withdrawal symptom, tolerance, disability of living and
differential concept were addiction possibility with convenient access rate which touched
once, easy portability and accessibility increase due to the push function, and various app and
contents. Based on this media characteristic, smartphone addiction testing for adult was
developed and it were consisted 4 sub-factors such as disability of daily living, virtual world
intentionality, withdrawal symptom, and tolerance. Each sub factors were as follow.
Withdrawal symptom meant that if people doesn’t have smartphone or couldn’t use
smartphone, they felt anxiety and nervousness. In addition, tolerance meant they couldn’t
feel satisfaction when used this gradually due to increased smartphone frequency of
utilization. Disability of daily living meant condition which caused smartphone overuse on
home, school, and company. Finally, virtual world intentionality meant that it recognized that
people preferred virtual world which used and made smartphone to connect interpersonal
relationship than real world.

2.2 Smartphone addiction & self-regulated learning

Self-regulated learning is defined as a constructive and conative process which controlled
and observed their behavior, motivation, and cognition to achieve their learning objective
strategically [33]. Many previous researches were revealed that Self-regulated learning was
important role in learning achievement. Self regulated learning were considered that it was
essential on cyber environment [14][20] which conducted using learning resources to learn
by learner on web and mobile learning environment which expanded space-time autonomy
by specialized mobility to successful learning[34][35]. Recently, smart learning environment
300 J. Lee et al.

which took center stage, it has mobile learning’s mobility and can access internet freely and
various app and expanded use of learning resources. Therefore, smart learning environment
were needed learner’s initiative which investigated necessary resource to successful learning
than cyber environment. Therefore, self regulated learning was learner’s essential ability to
fulfill the learning objective and outcome.
Meanwhile, it was difficult to find research which conducted correlation practically
between smartphone addiction level and self-regulated learning in smart learning
environment. However, there were research between mobile phone usage level and self-
regulated learning in general learning environment. Excessive mobile phone usage levels
were affected negatively on self-regulated learning [3]. Seong & Jin (2012) were also
revealed that if person has high dependence on mobile phone, he/she had negative correlation
on self-regulated learning[8]. In addition, Jin (2008) showed that the high internet addiction
with high school student, the low self-regulated learning [29]. Therefore, in this study, we
investigated relationship between smartphone addiction level and self-regulated learning.

2.3. Smartphone addiction & learning flow

Learning flow is defined that when participated activity, people fully concentrate on the
process and feel pleasure [30]. In learning, flow means that learner concentrate on learning
activity and feel joy and emotionally or behaviorally participated with effort [32]. Flow were
felt joy on learning and then, learner had satisfaction and increased learning’s quality and it
assumed that it leaded have a high learning outcome [4]. Flow was factors which affected
learning outcome because it caused that learner participated actively in virtual learning
environment such as cyber environment [7]. The research showed that learning flow was
essential factors for successful learning [15].
Meanwhile, it was difficult to find research between smartphone addiction level and flow.
Most of previous researches is investigated regarding mobile phone addiction. These
revealed that mobile phone addiction were affected negatively on learning flow [2][17]. Thus,
if student highly used mobile phone, learning flow were goes down. Based on this, high
mobile phone addiction student couldn’t concentrate on class which controlled by external
and couldn’t flow on learning activity. In other word, a student with smartphone addiction
might be difficult to have high learning flow because we used smartphone on learning and
this was factor of smartphone addiction. Therefore, in this study, we investigated between
smartphone addiction level and learning flow.
Smartphone Addiction in University Students and Its … 301

3 Research Methods

3.1 Research Subjects

214 students participated in these researches who are women at a university in Seoul. Th
ey are all 22years old. The self-report survey was used in this research and collected 214 sur
vey and eliminated 4 untrustworthy answer. Finally, we chose 210 surveys for this research.

3.2 Measurement

Smartphone addiction level: To measure Smartphone addiction level, questionnaire dev

eloped by National Information Society Agency (2011) were used. This survey consisted 15
questions with 5 Likert scale and sub-factors were disability of daily living (5Q),
withdrawal symptom (4Q), tolerance (4Q), and virtual world intentionality (2Q). In additio
n, the user group was categorized based on the diagnose result of addiction; high risk user g
roup, potential risk user group, general user group. For this research, since we focus on com
parison between risk group and general group in smartphone addiction, we combined potent
ial high risk user group and high risk user group. The Cronbach's was .92 in this research.

Self-regulated learning: self-regulated learning was measured by questionnaire develop

ed by So & Kim(2012) but revised to adapt in this study[9]. It consisted 4 questions using 5
Likert scale and the The Cronbach's was .85 in this study.

Learning flow: learning flow was measured by questionnaire developed by So & Kim (2
012) but revised to adapt in this study[9]. It consisted 4 questions using 5 Likert scale and T
he Cronbach's was .85 in this study.

3.3 Data analysis method

We used SPSS 18 to analysis the data. First, we classified the group based on the Smart
Phone addiction level. We identified average, median, standard deviation, and standard error
302 J. Lee et al.

with related variables of Smartphone on each group. After then, we checked the equal varia
nce assumption to compare with average of variables among group. This study satisfied the
equal variance assumption. If the variable satisfied equal variance assumption, we conducte
d Independent sample t-test When the variable unsatisfied the equal variance assumption, it
was conducted Welch-Aspin test to test the significance of difference mean between two gr
oups (at -risk user group/general group).

4 Results & Discussion

4.1. Difference of self-regulated learning and learning flow according to the

Smartphone addiction level

According to the results (see Table 1 & 2), there were statistically significant differences
on self-regulated learning and learning flow (p<0.05). Specifically, general user group (M=
3.03) has higher self-regulated leaning and higher flow than at-risk user group. This implied
that students with higher smartphone addiction level might have lack of behavior control a
mong self-regulated learning. It seemed that Smartphone addict tends to immediate satisfact
ion than long-term satisfaction because of lack of control impulsivity and long-term efforts
needed on self-regulated learning. These things led to go down in learning flow. Further int
erview for smartphone addiction group was conducted, it has been found that the smartphon
e addict learners are constantly interrupted by the other applications on the phones when the
y are studying, and does not have enough control over their smartphone learning plan and it
s process.

<Table 1> descriptive statistics by variables

standard
Smartphone sample mean
Variable deviation
addiction level (n) (M)
(SD)

self-regulated learning at-risk user group 64 2.46 .74

Smartphone Addiction in University Students and Its … 303

general group 146 3.03 .69

Total 210 2.86 .75

at-risk user group 64 2.58 .93

learning flow general group 146 2.86 .74

Total 210 2.78 .81

<Table 2> the difference of self-regulated learning and learning flow

by smartphone addiction level

Variable t p

Self-regulated learning -5.40** .00

Learning Flow -2.18* .03

*
p<.05, **p<.01

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