Patterns of smartphone use among university students in Jordan

Abstract EN

ackground: The intimate contact people have with smartphones has a strong impact on behavior and on the physical and psychological well-being of those who use them.

Aim: The current study described smartphone usage patterns and practices among university students in Jordan.

Methods: A random sample of N=1005 students (n=412 men; n=593 women) were recruited to the study.

All participants were registered in the health faculties at the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) for the second semester of the academic year 2016/2017.

N=918 participants (n=541 women, n=377 men; M=19.8, SD=1.6 years) completed a two-part questionnaire.

Part one assessed demographic data; the second surveyed smartphone usage.

Independent t-test and one-way ANOVA were used to test the significance of differences between means.

Results: A total n=547 (59.6%) students reported spending less than five hours on the smartphone daily, n=371 (40.4%) reported spending more than five hours.

About three-quarter of students (70.7%) reported checking their smartphone every 30 minutes or more.

The mean (SD) of daily time spent on smartphones in terms of hours was 5.9 (3.7); these means were found to be statistically different according to gender, age and years of education while having an internet package did not impact the daily time use.

Conclusions: Findings support the view that smartphone usage is increasing among university students in Jordan.

Communicating with family and friends followed by searching for information and checking social media were the most commonly described uses.

The most common situational factor for using smartphones was boredom.