Smartphone addiction and its related factors among elementary school students in Hue City in 2018

Abstract

In the digital age, the use of Smartphone in elementary students has been receiving a great deal of public attention. This study aims to describe the current situation of using Smartphone and its related factors in elementary school students in Hue city, Thua Thien Hue in 2018. By cross-sectional descriptive method, quantitative combination of over 640 parentstudent pairs and qualitative analysis on 2 groups of parents of 4 primary schools in Hue City. Using pre-designed toolkit and SAS-SV scale to assess the level of SP addiction in students. The results showed that 83.1% of primary school students used Smartphone, of which 28.2% showed signs of addiction, 47.6% showed signs of risk of smartphone addiction. The prevalence of Smartphone in males is higher than that of females (38.1% and 17.3%). Factors related to Smartphone abuse include gender, time of use, purpose of use, family economic condition, and parental education. From the research results, it can be concluded that the prevalence and risk of smartphone addiction among elementary school students is high. Accordingly, parents need to have a more attentive attitude as well as an appropriate method of using smartphones to avoid smartphone abuse in children.