Nomophobia and its Relation with Personality, Social Anxiety, and Stress Among Young and Middle-Aged Adults

Abstract

Nomophobia which stands for “no mobile phobia” is a growing problem in today’s digital life that affects one’s mental well-being, productivity, and relationships. It is important to raise awareness, promote digital literacy, and find a healthier balance between online and offline activities to mitigate the negative impacts of this addiction and have a more balanced relationship with technology. Therefore, this study aims to assess nomophobia and its relationship with personality, social interaction anxiety, and stress. Using purposive sampling, 120 participants (30 middle-aged females, 30 middle-aged males, 30 young adult females, and 30 young adult males) were surveyed. The Socio-Economic Scale (SES), Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), The Big Five Inventory (BFI), the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS), and the Stress Symptoms Rating Scale (SIAS) were administered. Nomophobia levels were found to be moderate among all the groups understanding using mean values of descriptive statistics. Pearson’s Product Moment correlation was employed to assess correlations between the variables, revealing the relationship between nomophobia with various personality traits, social anxiety, and stress and the relations of other variables among each other. Further, t-tests were used to examine differences based on age and gender in the sample and 2*2 way ANOVA was used to study the main effect and interaction effect of age and gender. Both analyses showed significant age-related variations in personality traits (like extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism), social anxiety, and stress levels within the samples. However, the results revealed that there were no significant gender differences or interaction effects of age and gender. These findings promote healthier smartphone habits and mitigate the negative consequences of smartphone addiction.