Exploring Associations between Nomophobia, Psychopathology and Smartphone-Inferred Behaviors in a Depressive Youth Cohort (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Smartphones have become an indispensable part of people’s lives, and the fear of being without them, what has been termed ‘nomophobia’, is a growing phenomenon. The connections among nomophobia, mental health measures, smartphone usage, and daily activities remains largely unexplored. This paper investigates nomophobia by analysing data obtained from a pilot study of depression in a youth cohort. In addition to passive sensing smartphone data, the study collected ecological momentary assessments and psychometric measures, including the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), which forms the basis of our investigation. Thus, we here examine associations between smartphone use, various clinical psychometric measures and nomophobia. Our findings reveal that nomophobia is positively associated with depression and negative affect, lower geolocation movements, and higher comfort with smartphone sensing. We also have developed exploratory predictive linear regression models that demonstrates the feasibility of predicting an individual’s NMP-Q score based on their smartphone sensing data. Our work is the first paper to explore the relationship between NMP-Q and smartphone sensor data, providing valuable insights into how individuals engage with their smartphones, contributing to the understanding of nomophobia, and paving the way for future studies.