Technological Addiction in Context: The Influence of Perceived Neighborhood Social Disorder on the Extensive Use and Addiction to the Smartphone

Abstract

After more than a decade of research on smartphone addiction, there is currently empirical evidence on the main sociodemographic, psychological, and psychosocial correlates of this type of behavioral addiction. However, research in this field has not yet paid sufficient attention to the influence that the social context may have on smartphone addiction, an aspect that has been frequently pointed out by investigations on both substance and behavioral addictions. The objective of this research was to analyze the influence of the social context—through the perceived social disorder in the neighborhood—on the extensive use and addiction to the smartphone in a representative national sample of 3,619 Spanish users. The results of the multiple linear regression analyses showed that, after statistically controlling for a set of sociodemographic, psychological, and psychosocial correlates, a specific contextual effect was detected: Higher levels of perceived neighborhood social disorder were associated with higher levels of both smartphone extensive use and smartphone addiction. These results highlight the need to incorporate the influence of the social context as a relevant explanatory element of smartphone extensive use and addiction.