Systematic Literature Review of Negative Social and Psychological Factors Affecting Mobile Phone Users

This systematic literature review aims at; identifying social and psychological factors affecting mobile phone users. In specific reference, it studies negative social and psychological effects on mental health and behavior of mobile users.

This study is a systematic literature review of negative social and psychological effects of mobile usage on phone users. Relevant literature on the topic is classified for it's; relevance, citation counts, and chronology of publications using SCOPUS bibliographic database. 39 relevant research articles on negative social and psychological effects of mobile phone are shortlisted from initial count of 2, 225. Later these articles are reorganized to thematically group into emerging factors.

The study classifies four negative social and psychological factors affecting mobile phone users as; social anxiety, depression & stress, addiction, object & romantic attachment. Social anxiety relates to; loneliness, psychological dependency, bulimia of contact, fear of separation, and feeling of solitude. Depression & stress is about; work-related stress, mental health, information overload, and techno-stress. Addiction to mobile phone is reported as; social extraversion, higher expenditure, and negative emotions. Lastly, literature discusses object & romantic attachment of mobile users as; sexting behavior, leisure, social engagement, media behavior, and lowering of anxiety.

Mobile phones being pervasive in usage, understanding negative social and psychological effects on users is a relevant cause. Four identified factors could be furthered using statistical testing.

This is an important study for its efforts in summarizing the extensive literature, and identifying social and psychological factors affecting health of mobile users.