Bibliometric Analysis of Smartphone Addiction Literature

Smartphone addiction has been widely recognized as a notable global public health issue. Researchers have already conducted numerous researches to look into various aspects of smartphone addiction such as risk/protective factors, negative consequences, prevalence, and intervention strategies. Despite the existence of these researches, they remain fragmented in the existing literature, which make it challenging for researchers to have an integrative view of smartphone addiction literature. Addressing this research gap, this study conducts bibliometric analysis on the 924 publications extracted from Scopus. More specifically, through the use of various performance indicators (e.g., total number of citations/publications and citation per publication), this study has identified the publication trend, most influential/productive journals, authors, and publications. Furthermore, through co-word analysis conducted on the title and abstract of publications, this study has also identified and briefly elaborated on the research themes in the existing literature of smartphone addiction (i.e., protective/risk factors, neurobiological mechanisms, and intervention; prevalence and negative consequences; scale development and psychometric properties). Taken together, this study provides researchers especially those new to the field of smartphone addiction a one-stop platform to gain an aggregative view of smartphone addiction literature.