Smart phone addiction and its mental health risks among university students in Jordan: a cross-sectional study

Background Addiction to smart phones is classified clinically as behavioral addiction resulted from an excessive problematic usage of smart phones that effect the daily life of the users. Therefore, this study aims to explore the prevalence of smart phone addiction, its associated psychological distress risk, and its associated predictors among university students in Jordan. Methods Between November 2022 and January 2023, a cross-sectional online survey study was conducted in Jordan. In this study, we used previously developed questionnaire instruments, the psychological Distress scale of Kessler and the Smartphone Addiction Scale. A score of 30 was used to identify the dummy variable in the binary logistic regression analysis to identify predictors of severe psychological distress, and smartphone addiction score of 38.7 was used to to identify predictors of smartphone addiction. Results A total of 2337 university students participated in this study. The mean psychological distress score for the study participants was 30.0 (SD: 8.9). More than half of the study participants (59.1%) had a psychological distress score of 30 and above, which indicates a severe mental disorder state. More than half of the study participants (56.7%) had a smartphone addiction score of 30 and above, which reflects a smartphone addiction state. Females, divorced, those who feel that their mental abilities have been negatively affected by the use of smart phones, those who feel that using smartphones has affected their sleep and made it harder to fall asleep, and those feel that everything requires effort and fatigue, and they do not want to do any activity that requires effort were more likely to have severe psychological distress compared to others (p < 0.05). Females, those who feel that using smartphones has affected their sleep and made it harder to fall asleep, and those feel that everything requires effort and fatigue, and they do not want to do any activity that requires effort were more likely to be smartphone addicted compared to others (p < 0.05). Conclusion Mental diseases are a major public health concern in Jordan, especially among university students. Females, those who thought smartphone usage hurt their mental capacities, and those who had trouble sleeping and fatigue were more likely to develop serious psychological discomfort and smartphone addiction. Smartphones are indispensable, but excessive use can lead to addiction and harm university students’ mental health.