Effect of Smartphone Addiction on Depression, Anxiety, and Stress of Adults

Abstract

Background: Adult Smartphone addiction is a widespread issue that has the potential to be harmful to mental health. However, a lot of people are unaware that Smartphone addiction is a significant problem that can harm a person’s thoughts, behavior, habits, feelings, and sense of wellbeing. Objectives: This paper will review the existing evidence on effect of Smartphone addiction on depression, anxiety, and stress. Method: The terms “Depression,” “Anxiety,” “Stress,” and “Smartphone addiction” were entered into the Pub Med Central and Google Scholar search engines up until November 2022. Result: The association between Smartphone addiction and sleep of young adults found that Smartphone addiction was associated with poor sleep, independent of usage duration, suggesting that usage duration should not be used as a proxy for harmful use. The result of this review paper revealed that university students in Malaysia had a propensity for Smartphone addiction and were exposed to anxiety and depression. Conclusion: The use of Smartphone excessively is linked to cognitive-emotion control issues, impulsivity, and cognitive impairment, addiction to social media, shyness, and low self-esteem. Medical issues can include sleep issues, decreased physical activity, unhealthful eating patterns, pain and headaches, impaired cognitive function, and alterations in the grey matter volume of the brain. In summary, excessive Smartphone use is linked to psychiatric, cognitive, emotional, and neurological alterations that health and education experts should take into account. People with psychopathological symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress are more prone to use Smartphone problematically, according to research on populations in Western and Eastern Asia.