Smartphones and Social Support: Longitudinal Associations Between Smartphone Use and Types of Support

2021 ◽  
pp. 089443932098876
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Lapierre ◽  
Pengfei Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Problematic Smartphone Use ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Smartphone Use ◽  
Tangible Support ◽  
Over Time

Smartphones provide users with a vast array of tools to reach out to the world. Smartphones can be used to reach out interpersonally with family, friends, and acquaintances, they can be used to scroll through social networking platforms where one can post comments on a friend’s status update or read about the personal lives of their favorite celebrity, and they can be used to surf the web or read the news. Yet, research has also shown that problematic smartphone use (PSU) can be harmful. Of interest in the current study is whether smartphones can help or harm social bonds longitudinally via social support. Working with a sample of 221 college students who were surveyed twice over a 3-month span, this study explored whether various types of smartphone use (e.g., person-to-person, social networking, and mass-mediated) along with PSU predicted different types of social support over time. The results showed that person-to-person smartphone use was associated with greater belonging support (i.e., feeling accepted by people around you) and tangible support (i.e., feeling that you can find people to help with practical needs) over time. In addition, increased PSU was associated with less tangible support longitudinally. Lastly, there were no effects for social networking or mass-mediated smartphone use on any type of social support. These results offer important insights into how smartphones potentially affect our ability to connect with others along with greater detail about specific kinds of use are implicated.

scholarly journals Stress, dependency, and depression: An examination of the reinforcement effects of problematic smartphone use on perceived stress and later depression

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengfei Zhao ◽  
Matthew A. Lapierre
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Problematic Smartphone Use ◽  
Mental Health Issues ◽  
Smartphone Use ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Stress Dependency

Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU) is associated with a series of mental health issues including depression; yet, the directionality and underlying mechanisms for these associations are underdetermined. This study investigated the possible reinforcement effects of PSU on perceived stress and later depression and the moderating effect of social support on the associations between perceived stress and smartphone use and PSU. This study further explored the differential effects for separate types of smartphone use. With a sample of 222 college students, we found that PSU reinforced perceived stress especially for people with high levels of stress, and perceived stress fully mediated the association between PSU and depression. Regarding types of smartphone use, we found that perceived stress was associated with both person-to-person and social networking smartphone use. In addition, for people with low to medium levels of social support, perceived stress was linked to increased PSU via social networking smartphone use.

Addressing Knowledge Management and Virtual Learning Communities in MOOC Using Open Resources and Gamification

2018 ◽  
pp. 74-92
Author(s):  
Luis Martin-Fernandez ◽  
Margarita Martinez-Nuñez ◽  
Oriol Borras-Gene ◽  
Angel Fidalgo-Blanco
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Knowledge Communities ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Open Content ◽  
Over Time

The confluence of thousands of students in a MOOC is an opportunity to manage all the knowledge generated through the creation of open educational resources (OER), especially when a connectivist approach is applied and the MOOC makes use of virtual learning communities. The challenge is transferring the flow of knowledge, activity, and interactions of the course to the community and making that transference sustainable and ongoing over time. For this purpose, the use of elements of gamification to train and retain the knowledge creators of the community along with the use of social networking platforms is proposed. This chapter analyses several editions of a MOOC and the opportunity offered by the use of different types of learning (formal, non-formal, and informal) that occur in them, thus characterizing patterns to train the open content and knowledge generation through gamification. From the results, indicators for managing successful and sustainable knowledge communities are proposed along with indicators for persistence and interaction between participants.

Social support in the process of household reorganization after divorce

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1927-1944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dries Van Gasse ◽  
Dimitri Mortelmans
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Single Parents ◽  
Dynamic State ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Social support has been shown to be important in the world of single parents. As for divorce, social support is mostly studied in a static way in academic research. Divorcing and/or separating people are in a dynamic state of a changing need for social support. This need changes over time within their process of becoming a single parent. In this article, we propose a more dynamic perspective on social support in the process of household reorganization after divorce. We argue that single parents move on after divorce and work toward a new conciliation of their responsibilities at home and at the labor market, using their social network. This resulted from a grounded theory analysis, conducted using 30 unstructured interviews that were then compared within an elaborative population of an additional 244 semi-structured interviews in order to develop a six-phase model of family reorganization after divorce.

scholarly journals A ten-step behavioural intervention to reduce screen time and problematic smartphone use

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay A. Olson ◽  
Dasha Sandra ◽  
Denis Chmoulevitch ◽  
Amir Raz ◽  
Samuel P. L. Veissière
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Screen Time ◽  
Intervention Study ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Behavioural Intervention ◽  
Problematic Smartphone Use ◽  
The World ◽  
Smartphone Use

Problematic smartphone use is rising across the world and has been associated with reductions in concentration and well-being. Few interventions aiming to reduce smartphone use take a multi-faceted approach that balances feasibility and effectiveness. We developed such an intervention with ten simple guidelines that nudge users to reduce their screen time (e.g., disabling non-essential notifications). Two pre-registered studies tested the intervention. Study 1 (N = 51) found reductions in screen time, problematic smartphone use, and depressive symptoms after two weeks. Study 2 (N = 70) found that the intervention caused larger changes in screen time, problematic smartphone use, and sleep quality than a control group of screen time monitoring alone. Our brief intervention reduced screen time by one hour per day and returned problematic smartphone use scores to normal levels for at least six weeks. This intervention provides simple, scalable, and feasible behavioural guidelines to promote healthy technology use.

scholarly journals Smartphone addiction is increasing across the world: A meta-analysis of 24 countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay A. Olson ◽  
Dasha Sandra ◽  
Élissa S. Colucci ◽  
Alain Al Bikaii ◽  
Johnny Nahas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Screen Time ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Smartphone Addiction ◽  
Problematic Smartphone Use ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
The World ◽  
Teenagers And Young Adults ◽  
Smartphone Use ◽  
Global Norms

Smartphone ownership and screen time are increasing across the world, but there have been few attempts to quantify smartphone addiction on a global scale. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies published between 2014 and 2020 that used the Smartphone Addiction Scale, the most common measure of problematic smartphone use. This scale measures whether smartphone use interferes with one’s daily life. We focused on studies of teenagers and young adults (aged 15 to 35) since they show the highest screen time and smartphone ownership rates. Across 85 samples, 24 countries, and 39,292 participants, we demonstrate that problematic smartphone use is increasing across the world. China, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia had the highest scores while Switzerland, Germany, and France had the lowest. Our results provide global norms for researchers and can help identify countries that could benefit from targeted interventions.

scholarly journals You are not alone: Smartphone use, friendship satisfaction, and anxiety during the COVID-19 crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 205015792110518
Author(s):  
Anja Stevic ◽  
Kevin Koban ◽  
Alice Binder ◽  
Jörg Matthes
Keyword(s):  
Positive Influence ◽  
Reciprocal Effects ◽  
Friendship Networks ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Smartphone Use ◽  
Friendship Satisfaction ◽  
Difficult Times ◽  
Over Time

Due to ‘stay-at-home’ measures, individuals increasingly relied on smartphones for social connection and for obtaining information about the COVID-19 pandemic. In a two-wave panel survey ( NTime2 = 416), we investigated associations between different types of smartphone use (i.e., communicative and non-communicative), friendship satisfaction, and anxiety during the first lockdown in Austria. Our findings revealed that communicative smartphone use increased friendship satisfaction over time, validating how smartphones can be a positive influence in difficult times. Friendship satisfaction decreased anxiety after one month, signaling the importance of strong friendship networks during the crisis. Contrary to our expectations, non-communicative smartphone use had no effects on friendship satisfaction or anxiety over time. Reciprocal effects showed that anxiety increased both types of smartphone use over time. These findings are discussed in the context of mobile media effects related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Problematic Smartphone Use in Spanish and Italian University Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10255
Author(s):  
Rosabel Roig-Vila ◽  
Paz Prendes-Espinosa ◽  
Mayra Urrea-Solano
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
University Students ◽  
Problematic Smartphone Use ◽  
Problematic Use ◽  
Validated Questionnaire ◽  
The World ◽  
Smartphone Use ◽  
Training Programmes ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

Sustainable education requires the proper usage of technological devices. Among these is the smartphone, which is used by millions of young people around the world in today’s society. The objective of this study was to understand the smartphone usage profile of Spanish and Italian university students. It also aimed to identify possible problematic uses, and the differences in smartphone use (or abuse) between the participating subjects. The study was descriptive and comparative, with the intentional sampling of N = 1412 subjects studying at the education faculties of the University of Alicante (UA) and the Suor Orsola Benincasa University (UNISOB). A previously-validated questionnaire with 27 items was employed during the 2019–20 academic year. The data was analysed using the SPSS 25 programme. Descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out. The results obtained after the analysis of the data indicated that, of the four possible user types—occasional, habitual, at risk, and problematic—more than half of the sample identified themselves as habitual users. It can be concluded that there are significant differences between the universities: the UA students exhibited more problematic use than the UNISOB students. It is therefore necessary to prepare training programmes that are designed to avert problematic behaviours related to smartphone use.

scholarly journals Features of the Clinical Course and Prognosis of Severe Traumatic Brain Injury Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-429
Author(s):  
Y. B. Vasilyeva ◽  
A. E. Talypov ◽  
M. V. Sinkin ◽  
S. S. Petrikov
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Brain Injury ◽  
Brain Injury ◽  
Brain Damage ◽  
Clinical Course ◽  
Neurological Status ◽  
Diagnostic Methods ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Over Time

BACKGROUND. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most important contemporary health issues. According to the World Health Organization, TBI is one of three leading causes of death in the world. Despite the development and widespread use of neuroimaging tools and instrumental research methods, clinical diagnosis of TBI is preferred. It is especially relevant at the prehospital stage when it is impossible to use instrumental diagnostic methods.THE AIM OF THE STUDY. To determine the clinical course features and prognosis of treatment outcomes in patients with various types of traumatic brain damage.MATERIAL AND METHODS. We studied the results of examination and treatment of 100 victims with a severe head injury hospitalized during the first days after receiving an injury and undergoing treatment at the N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute in 2008–2017. Depending on the type of brain injury patients were divided into 3 groups: Group 1 — isolated hematoma (n=20), Group 2 — hematomas and injuries of the brain (n=40), Group 3 — injuries of the brain (n=40). All patients underwent neurological examination, CT scan of the brain upon admission and over time within 12 days after trauma. In 30 victims, intracranial pressure (ICP) was monitored.RESULTS. We revealed features of the dynamics of individual neurological symptoms in patients with different types of brain damage. In patients with isolated hematomas, neurological status was represented mainly with clinic dislocation syndrome and contralateral hematoma hemiparesis, and clinical pattern significantly depended on intracranial hemorrhage. In patients with combination of hematomas and contusions, the neurological status and its dynamics were less dependent on the volume of the hematoma and were mainly determined by contusions of the midline structures of the brain. In patients with brain injuries, neurological status reliably correlated with injuries of midline structures.CONCLUSION. We revealed significant differences in neurological status, its changes over time and correlation with CT findings in patients with different types of traumatic brain injury.Authors declare lack of the conflicts of interests.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document