| With the increasingly rapid development of information technology, mobile phones have changed our lifestyle thoroughly, and have become an indispensable part in individuals’daily life. Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, including assisting in education, having access to various information, playing games, listening to music, and keeping in touch with others, etc. While this new technology is convenient and popular, various social issues have arisen because of its misuse. Phoning or texting somebody during driving, for example, would lead to car accidents. Phoning or texting someone during class would also disturb students, influencing their learning efficacy. What is worse, people may even be addicted to using mobile phones for entertainment and socializing, which means that they develop dependence on the mobile phone and have to maintain it at a very high cost. Therefore, excessive use of the mobile phone is considered as a technical pressure, which greatly affects individuals’ normal lives and studies. In brief, mobile phone dependence (addiction) has an extremely negative effect on individuals, and even becomes a threat to our whole society.A large body of previous studies investigated technical addiction (for example, Internet addiction). However, mobile phone dependence (addiction) has long been neglected by researchers. Mobile phone dependence might result from the interaction of individual factors, environmental factors and behavioral factors. Does personality, one of the stable individual factors, play a role in the development of mobile phone dependence? It is known that the behaviors of mobile phone use are controlled by the motivation, so can the motivation for mobile phone use predict the dependence? In this study, a total of529college students were selected from three universities in Hunan Province by random cluster sampling, and they were assessed with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Mobile Phone Dependence Inventory for College Students and Motivation for Mobile Phone Use for College Students. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship among mobile phone dependence, motivation for using mobile phone and personality in college students. This study explored the factors of mobile phone dependence, and thus provided theoretical support for the intervention and prevention of mobile phone dependence. The main results obtained are asfollows:1. There is significant difference in total score of mobile phone dependence among participants from different grades, and also in the dimensions of "Withdrawal Symptoms","Highlight the Behavior","Social Comfort", and "Mood Alteration" Freshman scored significantly lower than participants from other three grades in the total score of mobile phone dependence.2. The total score of female participants in the mobile phone use motivation is significantly higher than male, and also in the dimensions of "Self Expression" and "Recreation"; there is significant difference in total score of the mobile phone use motivation among participants from different grades, and also in the dimensions of "Interpersonal Communication","Information Acquisition","Self Expression" and "Recreation"3. There is significant positive correlation between the "Introversion and Extroversion" personality dimension and the mobile phone motivation (the total score, dimension of "Interpersonal Communication","Information Acquisition""Self Expression" and "Recreation"); there is significant negative correlation between the "Neuroticism" personality-dimension and the mobile phone motivation (dimensions of "Interpersonal Communication" and "Information Acquisition").4."Withdrawal Symptoms","Mood Alteration" dimensions in students mobile phone dependence positively correlate with mobile phones use motivation (the total score, dimensions of "Interpersonal Communication","Self-Expression" and "Recreation").5. There is significant positive correlation between "Withdrawal Symptoms" dimension in the mobile phone dependence and "Introversion and Extroversion" personality dimension."Neuroticism" and "Psychoticism" personality negatively correlate with mobile phone dependence (dimensions of "Withdrawal Symptoms","Highlight Act","Social Comfort" and "Mood Alteration").6. Students’ motivation for using mobile phones as a mediator partly mediated the relationship between personality traits and mobile phone dependence.To conclude, mobile phone dependence results from the interaction of individual factors, environmental factors and behavioral factors. This findings offer important insights to how to intervene and prevent mobile phone dependence. For instance, it is important for college students to deepen the understanding of mobile phone use, shape and cultivate sound personality, develop and improve the ability of self-control. Further studies might examine the role of psychological variables, social variables and interpersonal environmental variables in motivation for using mobile phone and mobile phone dependence. |
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