Cited by 33Impact of Technology on AdolescentsChild Development and Digital TechnologyAdolescent Health and Behaviors

Associations between Problematic Smartphone Use, Unhealthy Behaviors, and Mental Health Status in Korean Adolescents: Based on Data from the 13th Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2017)

Open access
Kim, Hae Ran, Han, Mi Ah·2020·Psychiatry Investigation

Abstract

Objective We aimed to assess the associations between problematic smartphone use, unhealthy behaviors, and mental health status among adolescents.Methods The data for this cross-sectional study were obtained from the 13th Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2017). From among the 62,276 adolescents who participated in this nationwide web-based survey, 54,603 (87.7%) who used smartphones were selected as the study population. Unhealthy behaviors included smoking, drinking, physical inactivity, skipping breakfast, and fast food consumption. For the examination of mental health status, we considered sleep disturbances, stress, depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. The associations between problematic smartphone use, unhealthy behaviors, and mental health were analyzed using multiple logistic regression analyses.Results More than four hours of use on weekdays (31.3%) and weekends (61.3%) and the use of smartphones for communication (46.9%) were associated with unhealthy behaviors and mental health problems. Furthermore, adolescents who experienced conflicts with family (22.3%) and friends (25.8%) and academic problems (3.4%) were likely to have health problems.Conclusion The results suggest that problematic smartphone use may disrupt adolescents’ health. Therefore, there is a need for prevention programs for problematic smartphone use at home and at school to improve adolescents’ health.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.30773/pi.2020.0007

Cites

53 of 53 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • There is mixed evidence from three studies (all with some concerns) between social media exposure and depressive symptoms.

    “There is also mixed evidence from three studies (all with some concerns) between social media exposure and depressive symptoms”

    From Associations between social media, adolescent mental health, and diet: A systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as [43]

    The Results report an association between smartphone use for communication and depressive symptoms in Korean adolescents, so this paper is relevant to the citing sentence. Its exposure measure is broader than social media exposure specifically; the paper does not itself assess mixed evidence across three studies or rate their quality. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • There is no evidence from one study with some concerns that social media use is associated with stress in either females or males.

    “There is no evidence from one study with some concerns that social media use is associated with stress in either females (OR [95% CI] = 0.95 [0.86 -1.06]) or males (0.92 [0.84 -1.01]).”

    From Associations between social media, adolescent mental health, and diet: A systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as [43]

    The Methods classify social media within a broader smartphone-use-for-communication group, but the Results do not report the quoted female or male odds ratios for stress. The Results refer to gender-stratified supplementary tables without giving those estimates in our copy. Searches for both quoted estimates and gender-specific stress findings did not locate them. (LLM, conf=0.74)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Kim, H. R., & Han, M. A.
Affiliations
Chosun University (KR)
Corresponding author
Kim, Hae Ran
Venue
Psychiatry Investigation
Published
2020-12-25
Volume
17
Issue
12
Pages
1216-1225
ISSN
  • 1738-3684 (ISSN-L)
  • 1976-3026
OpenAlex
W3118054639
Cited by
33
References
53
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1
FWCI
3.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychiatry Investigation (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
  • Social Sciences › Education › Child Development and Digital Technology
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Adolescent Health and Behaviors
Keywords
smartphone addiction, adolescents, harmful habits, mental health, sleep disorders, stress, depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, breakfast skipping, fast food consumption, family conflict, peer conflict, academic difficulties, screen time

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review