Professor co-authors paper on differences between user addiction to smartphone devices versus addiction to social network
University of Baltimore Associate Professor of Information Systems, Eusebio Scornavacca has co-authored a paper to be published in Computers in Human Behavior in January titled “Mobile ubiquity: Understanding the relationship between cognitive absorption, smartphone addiction and social network services.”
In addition to his role a Merrick School of Business faculty member, he serves as UB’s Parsons Professor of Digital Innovation and holds the John P. & Margaret M. Thompson Professorship in Management Information Systems. He is a sought after speaker around the world. Prior to joining UB, Professor Scornavacca was a faculty member and director of research at the School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He has also held visiting positions in Japan, Italy, France, Finland and Brazil. Prof. Scornavacca is a research fellow of the Consumer and Organizational Digital Analytics Research Center at King’s College, London. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous information systems, disruptive digital innovation and digital entrepreneurship. During the past 20 years he has conducted qualitative and quantitative research in a wide range of industries, including research sponsored by the private sector. Professor Scornavacca’s research has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Information Technology, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, Communications of the AIS, Information Management and the Journal of Computer Information Systems.
Learn more about the paper by reading the abstract.
The purpose of the present study is to examine the differences between user addiction to smartphone devices versus addiction to social network services (SNS), and the role of user perceptions. While a growing corpus of work has demonstrated the potentially deleterious effects of smartphone usage, relatively few studies have differentiated between addiction to the device versus addiction to social network services or measured the influence of user perceptions on smartphone addiction. To contribute to knowledge on this subject, the present study had three key aims. The first was to examine the differences between smartphone addiction and social network services addiction. The second aim was to understand the influence of user perceptions on addiction (measured through cognitive absorption to examine users’ state of involvement and engagement with software and technology). Our final aim was to examine differences for demographic factors for smartphone and social networking services addiction and user perceptions. Based on a survey of business students at a university in the Mid-Atlantic region of United States, the results showed that addiction to smartphone devices is greater than addiction to social networking services and varies by educational attainment, while social networking services usage does not vary by gender, age or education. Further, users addicted to smartphones and social networking services experience higher levels of cognitive absorption, particularly by females when using social networking services and greater for social networking services than smartphones. Finally, we find that the impact of cognitive absorption on smartphone addiction is mediated by addiction to SNS services.
The journal article in Computers in Human Behavior. Free download access available until November 4, 2018.