“From Use for Good to Overuse for Bad”: Association Among Smartphone Use, Problem Behaviors and Well-Being in Adolescents

The nature of the relationship between adolescents’ use of smartphones and their well-being over a longer period is still an open question. By using data collected from 284 Croatian adolescents (10 to 15 years old; mean age in 2021 = 12.23; 40.2% boys) in a 4-wave longitudinal study (2021–2023), the paper wanted to fill the gap and explore longitudinal associations among problematic smartphone use (PSU), internalizing problems (IP) and adolescents’ well-being (WB). Adolescents completed the Smartphone Addiction Scale (Kwon et al., PloS One, 8(2), e56936. 2013a) at wave 1 and 4, the Social Skills Improvement System Rating Scales (SSIS; Gresham & Elliott, Social skills improvement system: Rating scales. Bloomington, MN: Pearson Assessments. 2008) at wave 3 and 4, the PANAS scale (Mackinnon et al. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 405–416. 1999), and the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS; Seligson et al. Social Indicators Research, 61, 121–145. 2003) at wave1 and 4. The results showed a small direct longitudinal association of PSU and negative affect (NA). A small indirect association of PSU with NA and life satisfaction (LS) was found via IP. Namely, higher PSU was related to more NA and lower LS, through its association with more IP. The results showed bidirectional association of PSU and IP. The findings imply that over a longer time interval, PSU can negatively affect adolescent WB, and that screening procedures should be developed for discovering vulnerable children in early adolescence.