Mobile ubiquity: Understanding the relationship between cognitive absorption, smartphone addiction and social network services

The purpose of the present study is to examine the differences between user addiction to smartphone devices versus addiction to social network services (SNS), and the role of user perceptions. While a growing corpus of work has demonstrated the potentially deleterious effects of smartphone usage, relatively few studies have differentiated between addiction to the device versus addiction to social network services or measured the influence of user perceptions on smartphone addiction. To contribute to knowledge on this subject, the present study had three key aims. The first was to examine the differences between smartphone addiction and social network services addiction. The second aim was to understand the influence of user perceptions on addiction (measured through cognitive absorption to examine users’ state of involvement and engagement with software and technology). Our final aim was to examine differences for demographic factors for smartphone and social networking services addiction and user perceptions. Based on a survey of business students at a university in the Mid-Atlantic region of United States, the results showed that addiction to smartphone devices is greater than addiction to social networking services and varies by educational attainment, while social networking services usage does not vary by gender, age or education. Further, users addicted to smartphones and social networking services experience higher levels of cognitive absorption, particularly by females when using social networking services and greater for social networking services than smartphones. Finally, we find that the impact of cognitive absorption on smartphone addiction is mediated by addiction to SNS services.