Comparing Different Dimensions of Smartphone Addiction of PG Students by Mahalanobis Distance

Abstract

Due to the widespread use of smartphones and growing reliance on them for both personal and academic purposes, smartphone addiction has become a significant problem among post-graduate students in recent times. Thus, the present study aims to compare the difference between PG students of Purulia district of West Bengal regarding the present condition of different dimensions of smartphone addiction like daily-life disturbances, positive anticipation, withdrawal, cyberspace-oriented relationship, overuse, and tolerance taking together as a branch in regard to gender and location. It is a Descriptive research following survey type study. The population of this study encompasses all the PG students studying in Purulia district of West Bengal. A sum of 140 PG students have been recognized as the sample for the study through a simple random sampling technique. “Smartphone Addiction Scale” by Kwon et al. (2013) is administered to collect the data. Mahalanobis Distance technique has been applied to find out the difference among the different dimensions of smartphone addiction. To analyze the data, SPSS version 26.0 is used. Result revealed no significant difference in dynamical nature of the dichotomous groups when six dependent variables i.e. six dimensions of smartphone addiction like daily-life disturbances, positive anticipation, withdrawal, cyberspace-oriented relationship, overuse, and tolerance composed as a branch in regard to both gender and location.