The association between problematic smartphone use and symptoms of anxiety and depression-a meta-analysis

Background: Recent research links problematic smartphone use (PSU) and mental health problems. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the relationship between PSU and symptoms of anxiety and/or depression.

Methods: We searched for research literature published recently in PubMed and Google Scholar via a systematic literature search. Twenty-seven studies published since 2014 with 120 895 participants were included in the meta-analysis.

Results: PSU was moderately but robustly associated with both anxiety, r = 0.29 (95% CI: 0.23-0.35), and depression, r = 0.28 (95% CI: 0.22-0.34), P < 0.001 for both. Homogeneity tests showed significant P-values for anxiety and depression, but without affecting the results. Neither the age of the participants, publication year nor the study quality could explain the heterogeneity. Furthermore, we found no evidence for publication bias, since Egger's regression test showed no significance for depression (P = 0.21) and anxiety (P = 0.35).

Conclusions: Our study shows that PSU can be viewed as an indicator of symptoms of anxiety and depression and a possible manifestation of these mental health problems in modern society. Furthermore, PSU as a maladaptive coping behavior may contribute by worsening these symptoms. PSU screening should thus become part of standard clinical psychological diagnostic procedures.