The Digital Addiction Scale for Children: Development and Validation
Open accessAbstract
Researchers worldwide have developed and validated several scales to assess various forms of adults' digital addiction. The urge for some of these scales found support in World Health Organization's inclusion of gaming disorder as a mental health condition in its eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases in June 2018. Additionally, several studies have shown that children are starting to use digital devices (DDs) (e.g., tablets and smartphones) at a very young age, including playing video games and engaging in social media. Consequently, the need for early detection of the risk of digital addiction among children is becoming more of a necessity. In the present study, the Digital Addiction Scale for Children (DASC)-a 25-item self-report instrument-was developed and validated to assess the behavior of children 9 to 12 years old in association with DD usage, including video gaming, social media, and texting. The sample comprised 822 participants (54.2 percent males), from grade 4 to grade 7. The DASC showed excellent internal consistency reliability (α = 0.936) and adequate concurrent and criterion-related validities. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the DASC fitted the data very well. The DASC paves the way to (a) help in early identification of children at risk of problematic use of DDs and/or becoming addicted to DDs and (b) stimulate further research concerning children from different cultural and contextual settings.
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The higher risk of smartphone addiction in females may be related to a stronger desire for social relationships.
“Females have almost three times more risk for smartphone addiction than males and it may be related to a stronger desire for social relationships [66].”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
The Gender differences section reports that males, not females, were at higher risk of addiction to digital devices. The Discussion likewise reports 14.2% of males versus 10.2% of females at risk. The study does not assess smartphone addiction separately or offer a stronger desire for social relationships as an explanation; page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredFemales have almost three times more risk for smartphone addiction than males.
“Females have almost three times more risk for smartphone addiction than males and it may be related to a stronger desire for social relationships [66].”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
The Gender differences section reports that males, not females, were at higher risk of addiction to digital devices. The Discussion likewise reports 14.2% of males versus 10.2% of females at risk; it does not support a nearly threefold greater risk for females. (LLM, conf=0.92)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredConcern, loss of controlling tolerance, withdrawal, instability and impulsiveness, mood modification, lies, and loss of interest have been identified as risk factors for smartphone addiction.
“In detail: concern, loss of controlling tolerance, withdrawal, instability and impulsiveness, mood modification, lies, and loss of interest have been identified as risk factors for smartphone addiction.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
The Development of the Digital Addiction Scale for Children section (page unavailable) lists preoccupation, tolerance, withdrawal, deception, mood modification and other criteria resembling much of the claim. But these are assessment criteria for digital addiction in children, not identified risk factors for smartphone addiction; the passage does not list instability or impulsiveness. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredWeekday device use among females causes more conflicts.
“Nevertheless, results demonstrated that weekday device use among females causes more conflicts [66].”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
The Gender differences section reports a positive correlation between weekday gameplay time and overall digital-addiction scores for females. The Dimensionality and factorial validity analysis identifies conflict as one component of the scale, but neither section shows that weekday device use causes more conflicts among females. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn a sample, 12.4% were identified as at risk of digital addiction and most of them (62.4%) were male.
“Out of the sample size, 12.4% were identified as at risk of addiction and most of them (62.4%) were male.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
Children are starting to use digital devices at a very young age.
“As well as O’Keeffe, Hawi found out that children are starting to use digital devices at a very young age, and so should be screened for the risk of digital addiction.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
The Digital Addiction Scale for Children is validated to assess the behavior of children 9 to 12 years old in association with digital devices usage.
“New scales of early identifications have been developed such as the Digital Addiction Scale for Children, validated to assess the behavior of children 9 to 12 years old in association with digital devices usage.”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
Social media use is correlated with risk of internet addiction.
“Ten reports found correlations between social media use and risk of different types of addictions: with internet [17,24,49,51,52,66], with substance abuse [15,67], with alcohol addiction and gaming [67], with gambling [68], and with tobacco use [69].”
From The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
The Introduction discusses social-media use, and the Results and Discussion assess children's risk of addiction to digital devices. The reported correlations concern gameplay time and digital-addiction scores, not social-media use and risk of internet addiction; searches for that specific relationship found no passage reporting it. Page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.75)
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References 28 · Cited by 142
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [25]25. Kibona L, Mgaya G. Smartphones' Effects on Academic Performance of Higher Learning Students. Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science and Technology,. 2015;2(4):777-84.
- Authors
- Hawi, N. S., Samaha, M., & Griffiths, M. D.
- Affiliations
- Notre Dame University – Louaize (LB)
- Nottingham Trent University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Samaha, Maya
- Venue
- Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-12-01
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 771-778
- ISSN
- 2152-2715 (ISSN-L)
- 2152-2723
- OpenAlex
- W2990598789
- Cited by
- 142
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 17
- FWCI
- 23.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Nottingham Trent University's Institutional Repository (Nottingham Trent Repository) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Notre Dame University-Louaize
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Education › Child Development and Digital Technology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
- Keywords
- digital addiction, children, video gaming, social media use, text messaging, scale development, psychometric validation, self-report measures
- MeSH terms
- Behavior Rating Scale, Smartphone, Child, Factor Analysis, Statistical, Female, Humans, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reproducibility of Results, Behavior, Addictive, Video Games, Internet, Text Messaging, Social Media
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