Predicting smartphone addiction among Chinese workers: The role of work-related smartphone usage, psychological factors, and managerial support (Preprint)

BACKGROUND With the intensifying dependency relationship between employees and their smartphones for work reasons, employees’ smartphone addiction may be affected by work-related factors. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to examine how duration of work-related smartphone use, habit, psychological factors (i.e., social anxiety, smartphone self-efficacy, and job stress), and managerial support relate to organizational workers’ smartphone addiction. METHODS A cross-sectional online survey were conducted with 527 full-time organizational workers in Mainland China. Hierarchical regression analysis was employed to examine the relationships between independent and dependent variables. RESULTS The results revealed that work-related smartphone use, habit, social anxiety, job stress, and managerial support were positively correlated with smartphone addiction. However, smartphone self-efficacy has no significant association with smartphone addiction among organizational workers. CONCLUSIONS Employees with longer duration of smartphone usage at work, a habit of using smartphone, higher social anxiety and higher job stress, and being encouraged by their managers to use smartphone at work are more risky in developing addiction symptoms towards smartphone.