Excessive smartphone use related to the number of sexual partners
Specialists in psychology, in collaboration with cybersecurity firms, conducted a survey of more than 3,000 undergraduate students in the U.S., finding that, among respondents, those who considered having problems with the amount of time they used their mobile phone tended to have more sexual partners than other people.
Another recurring problem among the people who
use the phone the most time is anxiety and depressive states. “These are
alarming discoveries,” says one of the psychologists in charge of this
project.
The research, entitled “Survey on Health
and Addictive Behaviors”, aims at assessing the mental health and general
well-being of college-level students, focusing primarily on the impact that
mobile phone use has on their mood and social behavior.
Some of the variables used by cybersecurity
specialists to determine whether smartphone
usage should be classified as excessive include:
- Do
you feel that the amount of time you spend using your smartphone has increased
lately? - Have
any friends or family members complained about your excessive smartphone use? - Having
trouble concentrating in class or at work due to smartphone use? - Feeling
restless or anxious without your smartphone at hand?
One in five students answered these questions
in the affirmative.
The researchers found that students who claimed
to have two or more sexual partners over the past year tended to affirmatively
answer questions about excessive smartphone use (37.4% of respondents in
total). “However, there are other factors that influence this behavior
besides the constant use of the smartphone,” says Dr Sam Chamberlain, head
of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.
For cybersecurity experts, the use of social
media platforms and dating
apps has contributed to the trend of establishing casual encounters
among young Americans. “Excessive use of the smartphone influences the
neglect of conventional social relationships,” they say.
The number of sexual partners is not the only
behavior linked to smartphone use that the team of experts discovered.
Cybersecurity specialists from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS)
mention that another constant among people who spend too much time on their
smartphone is excessive alcohol consumption, significantly higher than among
the rest of the university population surveyed.
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