Personality Correlates to Digital Dependencies of Schoolchildren

The purpose of this article is to identify possible relationships among Russian-speaking schoolchildren between: video game addiction, smartphone addiction, social media addiction, aggression, anxiety, depression, procrastination, daily gaming duration, and sleep problems. The basis of this empirical study was the results of online testing of 310 schoolchildren ages 10-17 (mean age M = 14.3 years, SD = 1.9). Used: the APA questionnaire on video game addiction, a short version of the questionnaire on smartphone addiction (author V.P. Sheynov), the questionnaire on social media addiction (authors V.P. Sheynov, A.S. Devitsyn), a short version of the questionnaire on procrastination (authors V.P. Sheynov, A.S. Devitsyn), the Russianlanguage version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (adapted by M.A. Morozova et al.). Positive correlations were found among Russian-speaking schoolchildren between: video game addiction, smartphone addiction, social media addiction, aggression, anxiety, depression, procrastination, duration of daily video game playing, and sleep problems. With age, schoolchildren of both sexes show higher rates of social media addiction, smartphone addiction, aggression, anxiety, depression, and procrastination. At ages 10-17, boys have significantly higher rates of video game addiction and daily video game playing than girls, and their rates increase with age. Girls have higher rates of social media and smartphone addiction, anxiety, and procrastination than boys. Aggression is also more pronounced in girls, especially in schoolgirls ages 10-13. Boys and girls suffer equally from depression and sleep problems. The obtained results have theoretical significance. In particular, they show that video game addiction, smartphone addiction and social media addiction form a triune concept (construct) that can be defined as the “Problem Complex of Digital Addictions”, which includes smartphone addiction, social media addiction and video game addiction with their positive relationships with each other and positive relationships with such problematic personality traits as aggression, anxiety, depression, procrastination, sleep problems and duration of daily video game playing.