Which countries are the most addicted to using cellphones or smartphones? A study conducted by McGill University, Canada, has found the answer.
As quoted by us from the Daily Mail, the research was conducted in the period from 2014 to 2020 or about 6 years. A total of 34 thousand participants were involved from 24 countries.
In first place is China, whose population is concluded to be the most addicted to smartphones with a score of 36 out of 60. Successively in the top 5 rankings are Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Brazil, and then South Korea.
Next are Iran, Canada, Turkey, Egypt and in tenth place is Nepal. Continuing to 11th place is Italy, followed by England, Australia, Israel, Serbia and Japan.
"We conducted a meta-analysis of problematic smartphone use, focusing on young adults," said the research team, which published their research in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
"Problematic smartphone use increased worldwide between 2014 and 2020, and we expect this trend to continue," they added. Naturally, more and more people are dependent on using smartphones for various purposes.
This study is based on the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS) method which is the most widely used to measure the level of addiction to smartphones. The participants were aged between 15 and 35 years, with an average age of 28.8 years from the 24 selected countries.
"We hope that the results of this study will help researchers and policy makers anticipate problematic smartphone use around the world," said the research team.