Mobile Phone Addiction among Youth in Tehran: A Sociological study

Abstract

Nowadays, the problem of dependency or addiction to new technologies is considered as a new and modern addiction among youth. In this regard, addiction to mobile phone among youth and some factors contributing to it are addressed in the present article. Taking advantage of “dependence to media approach” and “motive-behavior theory” , and “internet addiction theory”, some hypotheses were made and theoretical relations stablished among the variables. The statistical population of the research included all of Tehranian youth between 15 to 30 years old at 2014, out of which 400 youngsters were selected as the research sample. It should be mentioned that research sample primarily was determined by Cochran calculation formula, and then, respondents were selected through cluster sampling method. Measurement of mobile phone,s addiction was mainly carried out according to Mrino Cholize,s standard scale(TMD-2013) about mobile phone addiction, by which it is possible to measure the rate of addiction to mobile phone. Research findings showed that the rate of youth,s addiction to mobile phone in Tehran is relatively on the edge of the middle level- not so high and not so low. Independent variables such as social, economical and cultural capitals showed significant relation with the rate of addition to mobile phone. Also, there is relatively strong relation between “peer group,s effect” and “mobile phone attractives” with the rate of youth addiction to mobile phone. At the same time, there is no significant relation between “religiosity rate” and mobile phone addiction. Finally, it is noteworthy that selected independent variables in this research could explain 49% of “addiction to mobile phone” variances.