Mobile phone addiction among students’s at a South African university

Abstract

The paper presents the results of research carried out to examine mobile phone addiction among students at a South African University. The results suggest that students exhibited addiction tendencies. Of the top sources of addiction were; a feeling of loss when students did not have their mobile phones with them, reduction in sleep patterns, use of mobile phones longer than intended, feeling of restlessness and irritability when not using mobile phone and use of mobile phones to escape from problems. Two main addictive symptoms were extracted and students’ behaviour were categorised as ranging from loss of control to withdrawal.