Role of Smart Phone Apps on Smart Phone Addiction Among Nigerian Undergraduates: Impact of Age, Gender, and Phone-Type

The constant inclination on the use of smart phone applications (Apps) among students has gone above from normal purposes of using a smart phone to more active stage of conscious engagement in elaborate use. This has lead to one of behavioural problem prevailing among them today. This study sought to unveil the degree to which undergraduates are craving to smart phone apps and their demographic profile. Researching on the impact of Age, gender, and phone-type on Smart Phone Apps craving could probe into the prevailing variable that contributes greatly to Smart phone addiction. One hundred and two (102) undergraduates (51 males, and 51 females) aged 20 and 40 years ( M=2 5.35 years, SD= 2.58) participated in this study. The questionnaire used include group of questions related to demographic characteristics, and the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS-SV) for measuring the studied variables. Purposive sampling techniques were used for data collection and Anova Statistics was used for data analysis. The result of the analysis showed that Age, and Phone-type had a significant main effect on Smart phone addiction, indicating that the age of these students and the type of phone they use aid to increase Smart phone addiction found among them. Gender did not account for Smart phone addiction. It was concluded that Age and Phone-type should be considered to be important factors in psychosocial interventions to minimize Smart phone addiction of undergraduates.