Assessment Of The Relationship Between Phubbing And Personality Types Among University Students

Abstract

Phubbing is defined as busying oneself with a smartphone and social media and socializing through networks during interpersonal communication. Becoming increasingly common among young people, phubbing may cause some physical and mental health problems. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of phubbing among university students, to review some variables that are believed to be associated and to determine personality types.This cross-sectional study was conducted on all undergraduate students at a university in Ankara the 2020-2021 spring semester. Data was collected online. It was targeted to reach the target population rather than calculating the sample. The study group consisted of 869 students who agreed to take part in the study. In this study, the Phubbing Scale was used to determine the level of phubbing and 10-Item Personality Inventory was used to determine personality traits. Analyses were conducted with Chi-squared test and Logistic Regression Analysis. Statistical significance value was accepted as p < 0.05.The study group consisted of 654 (75.3%) female students and 215 (24.7%) male students. Their age ranged from 18 to 44 with a mean age of 21.37 ± 2.97 years. The prevalence of phubbing was found to be 7.9% in this study. Being a woman, having an extended family, having an average duration of daily smartphone use of 6 hours and more and agreeableness personality trait are among important risk factors for phubbing. The most commonly used social media apps by the students were WhatsApp (29.6%), Instagram (25.9%) and YouTube (23.6%). Phubbing becomes an important health problem among university students. More extensive studies are required to establish the relationship between personality types and phubbing more clearly and conclusively. It would be advantageous to provide information and consultancy to students regarding the rational use of smartphones in line with their actual needs.