Adults’ perspectives on smartphone usage and dependency in Australia

Abstract

This study investigated the smartphone usage and dependency problem based on demographics among the adult population of Australia. A novel aspect of this study is that it specifically examines how people rate their perceived dependency levels compared with their perceived usage, which participants are asked to measure in comparison to their peers. Other novel aspects of this study include assessing the impact of parental status and occupational status on smartphone use and dependency, as well as addressing previous research gap in studying balanced population across genders and wide age range. This study also identifies activities associated with low usage and low dependency as opposed to activities linked to high smartphone usage and dependency. By comparing our findings to those obtained from similar studies in other countries and cultures, this study finds where problems are being detected consistently across multiple studies and where there are ambiguities. Where inconsistencies were identified, the question arises whether this is due to differences between measured populations (i.e. the Australian context of our research) or smartphones becoming more powerful and more affordable between research studies. Finally, this study explores possible avenues for future research into the usage patterns and smartphone dependency to support achieving balanced lifestyles of concerned individuals.

Keywords

• Smartphone usage
• Smartphone dependency
• Smartphone activities