The Relationship Between Smartphone Overuse and Academic Achievement Among Undergraduate Nursing Students

Introduction Nowadays, college students highly depend on smartphones on a daily basis because it is found to be practical and useful to manage and organize most of their daily basic activities. However, this raises a concern about the negative influence of smartphone overuse on their academic achievement and well-being. Relatively, multiple studies have reported negative impacts associated with smartphone overuse on different aspects like sleep patterns, body energy, eating habits, and academic achievements. Objective This cross-sectional study examines the relationship between smartphone overuse and academic achievement among 133 undergraduate nursing students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Science in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Method Demographic data was collected and the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV) was used to collect other data. Results The statistics showed an overuse of smartphones among the students as half of them (50.4%) reported checking their smartphones 1-10 times per hour. Additionally, most of the participants reported that they use their smartphones regularly (97.7%) and 90.2% of them use monthly data plans. Furthermore, 75.9% of students reported using their phones during class, either for note-taking or searching. Conclusion The findings did not show a significant association between academic achievement and smartphone overuse because a high percentage of the participants reported using their phones mostly for educational purposes.