Effects of Smartphone Usage on Social Wellbeing of School Going Children (5-16 years) in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of smartphone usage on social wellbeing of school going children (5-16 years). Descriptive cross sectional household survey was carried out in all ten towns of Lahore, Pakistan in five months duration from January 2017 to May 2017. The sampling technique was multistage cluster sampling. The school going smartphone users included in the study were 2889. The study tool was structured questionnaire. The gathered data was analyzed through IBM SPSS Statistics Version 21 in terms of Descriptive statistics and Bivariate logistic regression. Long term smartphone usage was found significantly associated with social networking among school going children. The p-value of hours spent by school going smartphone users with family per day was <0.01, smartphone use during breakfast, lunch & dinner was 0.011, smartphone use when family sitting closer to them was <0.001 and smartphone use to interact with friends and cousins was 0.0001. The study concluded that long term smartphone usage can result in decreased face-to-face communication and decreased interaction between family members living in one home and increased interaction with friends and people outside the home.