Smartphone addiction, fluid intelligence and working memory in Mexican students

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to determine the association of the level of smartphone addiction with working memory in university students and fluid intelligence in high school graduates. For this purpose, initial measurements were made with an adaptation of the smartphone addiction scale to measure the former, with complex scope tasks for working memory and with Raven’s progressive matrices for fluid intelligence. For this purpose, a descriptive and cross-sectional study was implemented in three groups of Mexican institutions that receive a public subsidy. The sample consisted of 154 participants in total: 65 high school and 89 university students. The average age of high school students was 15.9 years, while the average age of university students was 20.9 years. Of the participants in general, 23% perceived themselves to be addicted, with the most prevalent symptoms tolerance and withdrawal syndrome, and the least prevalent being disregard for the consequences. The results indicate that there was no association between perceived addiction and working memory capacity or fluid intelligence. These findings lead to the development of new studies to determine other harmful effects on the daily lives of Mexican adolescents and young adults.

Keywords

• smartphone
• problematic use
• cognitive abilities
• young people