Impact of Smartphone Addiction on Loneliness among Late Adolescents Studying at Selected Colleges of Vijayapur

Introduction: Identification of the potential sources of Smartphone addiction and loneliness is very important in the present colleges. It provides opportunity to take various measures to prevent Smartphone addiction and loneliness among late adolescents in Nursing Colleges students. The Young people especially tend to use Smartphone often to such an extent that many people believe that this usage amounts to addiction. Today it is common for individuals to be inseparable from their Smartphone’s, as demonstrated by the latest data published from the Pew Research Centre in USA, which reports that Smartphone users 46% the users say ‘I can’t do anything without Smartphone. Aims and Objectives: The objective of the study was to correlate between the Smartphone addiction and loneliness and to find out the association between Smartphone addiction & loneliness among late adolescents. Materials and Methods: A correlative descriptive research design was used for the study. The Smartphone addiction and loneliness scale was used. The opinion was obtained from 100 B.Sc. Nursing and Diploma Nursing students followed administration of Smartphone addiction scale and loneliness scale tools for the assessment. Results: The results showed that the students had mild Smartphone addiction and mild loneliness among students. Majority of the students had mild addiction level score 0-17 (69%), moderately addicted students’ scores is 18-34 (15%) and severely Smartphone addicted students scores is 35-52 (16%). Smartphone addiction score and loneliness score means are 35.85 and 28.91, median are 42 and 30.5 and SD 38.64 and 29.29 respectively. There is a positively correlation between level of Smartphone addiction and level loneliness (r=0.99). Conclusion: Smartphone usage or using is normal for everybody to experience in some extent but too much Smartphone usage may cause harmful effects on student career, disturbance in the health it causes disturbance in the learning and it directly effects on the academic performance of the students. Keywords: Assess, Smartphone addiction, Loneliness, UCLA.