Prevalence of Nomophobia among University Students: A Comparative Study of Pakistani and Turkish Undergraduate Students

This study focused on to examine prevalence of nomophobia among university students; and the relationship among nomophobia, self-esteem, loneliness and self happiness with respect to gender and year of study of the university students in Pakistan and Turkey. The study subjects consisted of 729 students 368 (50.5%) of which were from Turkey and 361 (49.5%) from Pakistan. The data were collected by using Nomophobia Scale (NMP-Q), UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8), Self-Happiness Scale, and Rosenberg' Self-Esteem Scale by the researchers from Pakistan and Turkey respectively. The relationship and the effect of each psychological structure on nomophobia were examined with multiple linear regression model. The difference across the categories of independent variables on each of the dependent variables (loneliness, self happiness, self-esteem and nomophobia) and on linear combination of dependent variables for each country was examined by multivariate MANOVA. According to multivariate effects results, the main effect of gender on self-esteem and nomophobia was statistically significant which indicates that differences between male and female students with respect to self-esteem and nomophobia were significant. The study demonstrated differences between Turkish and Pakistani students' score on nomophobia, loneliness and self-happiness were significant, while difference on self-esteem across countries was not statistically significant.