The sample of 1,200 young Spanish adults on which the conducted study is based is distributed equally between men (50%) and women (50%). In contrast, the distribution by gender varies across the different profiles: there are more men in two of the profiles and more women in the other four.

In the two profiles containing motives associated with entertainment and distraction, we find greater imbalances by gender. The impulsive user profile, in which the dominant activities are pornography consumption, gambling and online gaming, displays a disproportionate ratio of four men (81%) to one woman (19%). At the other end of the scale, the escapist user profile, which is characteristic of young adults who resort to smartphones to stop thinking about something that makes them uncomfortable or to seek affection, consists mostly of women: a ratio of six women (62%) to four men (38%). 

The rest of the profiles are more balanced by gender, with small differences. The social user profile is slightly biased towards women (42% men, 58% women), as are the moderate user (46% men, 54% women) and the organised user (45% men, 55% women) profiles. In contrast, there are more men with the hyperconnected user profile (54% men, 46% women).

The following charts show the amount of time that young adults spend per week on two types of non-screen activities: sport and hobbies. Both activities are distinguished by profile and by gender. The overall difference by gender is clear, though it is higher for sport (men, 7 hours 30 minutes per week; women, 5 hours) than it is for non-screen hobbies (men, 6 hours per week; women, 5 hours 20 minutes). 

In both genders, the two profiles that spend more time on doing sport are organised users and impulsive users, whereas social users and escapist users spend less time on physical exercise. Those that do not stand out for any particular smartphone use (moderate users) and those that stand out for using smartphones a lot (hyperconnected users) spend practically the same amount of time on doing sport. On average, men do 2 hours 30 minutes more sport per week than women, although this figure is higher in some profiles and lower in others. The biggest difference can be found in the organised user profile: men spend almost 3 hours 30 minutes more on sport per week than women. Conversely, in the escapist user profile, the difference between genders reduces to just 15 minutes of sport per week, in favour of men.

In both genders, the impulsive user profile stands out for the amount of time per week spent on non-screen hobbies (6 hours 30 minutes). Among men, the escapist user profile also stands out (6 hours 35 minutes), although it should be noted that women with this profile spend the least amount of time on hobbies (4 hours 29 minutes), which creates a gender gap of more than 2 hours per week.

On average, men do more sport than women, and something similar happens with non-screen hobbies for both moderate users and organised users: men spend almost 1 hour more per week on non-screen hobbies than women. In contrast, there are hardly any differences by gender in the amount of time per week spent on hobbies between impulsive users (men, 1 minute more than women), social users (women, 3 minutes more than men) and hyperconnected users (men, 4 minutes more than women).

The ability to control one’s own use of technology is an important factor of well-being (Hofmann et al., 2017). In the conducted study, self-control of smartphone use was evaluated with an internationally validated instrument (Smartphone Addiction Scale - Short Version ─SAS-SV─, Kwon et al., 2013). Using this instrument, young adults were asked how often (never, occasionally, quite often or often) situations like the following happened to them: ceasing to make plans due to their smartphones, having problems concentrating in class or at work, having a bad time if they do not have their smartphones on them, constantly checking their smartphones so as not to miss any conversations, or others saying that they use their smartphones too much. Taking the mean level of self-control in the whole sample as the benchmark (value 0%), Chart 4 shows how the level of self-control rises or falls by use profile.

The ability to exercise self-control when using smartphones seems to be strongly associated with the motives for resorting to smartphones. At one end of the scale, two profiles are associated with greater self-control: the ability to control smartphone use is 8% more prevalent among moderate users and 5% among organised users. Both profiles stand out for making a non-specific and instrumental smartphone use, for tasks such as calendar management, work, etc., but not so much for socialising or escaping from problems. At the opposite end of the scale, we find young adults with the hyperconnected user profile, who resort to technology for multiple tasks. Their levels of self-control are very low; 16% lower than the overall mean. In fact, in the conducted study, it was found that more than half of young adults classified into this profile manifested difficulties controlling their smartphone use. Between these two extremes, we find profiles that are associated with a slight fall in self-control: social users (−4%) and escapist users (−4%). Lastly, impulsive users (−1%) are only slightly below the overall mean with regard to their ability to control smartphone use.

The prevalence of negative symptoms of mental health among younger generations is concerning. The following chart shows the proportion of young adults, by technology use profile, who exhibit high or severe levels of anxiety, depression and stress. The levels of each profile are compared to the mean prevalence of these three symptoms of ill-being in the sample of all young adults as a whole, which corresponds to the vertical line (value 0). Thus, to the right are values above the mean (greater prevalence of symptoms) and to the left are values below the mean (less prevalence of symptoms).

Anxiety (red dot) is the most prevalent indicator of psychological ill-being among young adults: 28% suffer from high or severe levels of this symptom (figure not shown in the chart). This proportion rises for escapist users (+3), who use smartphones more for escaping from their problems; impulsive users (+7), who resort to smartphones more for pornography, gaming and gambling; and for hyperconnected users (+9), who use smartphones for several of the aforementioned uses. The three other profiles display lower levels of anxiety.

By prevalence, the second symptom of psychological ill-being is stress (brown dot): 19% of young adults suffer from high or severe levels of this symptom (figure not included in the chart). In this case, only young adults with a moderate user profile (−5) are below the mean. Organised users (0) and impulsive users (0) are right on the mean, and social users (+3) and escapist users (+3) are a little above it. Once again, hyperconnected users (+6) are above the mean.

Lastly, 17% of the surveyed young adults (figure not reflected in the chart) suffer from high or severe levels of depression (green dot). This problem is strikingly more frequent among escapist users (+4) and hyperconnected users (+9), the same groups that already stood out negatively in the previous indicators.

The other side of mental health is personal well-being. In the conducted study, two indicators of psychological well-being were measured: self-esteem and subjective happiness. The following chart shows the values of these variables for the surveyed young adults by their technology use profile. The levels for each group are shown around the overall mean, which corresponds to the value 0 in the chart. 

Of the surveyed young adults, 63% (figure not shown in the chart) have high levels of self-esteem (green dot). Regarding the smartphone user profiles, what stands out is that high self-esteem is less prevalent among escapist users (−17). Hyperconnected users (−4) and social users (−3) are also situated below the mean prevalence. On the positive side, impulsive users are slightly above the mean (+2), followed by moderate users (+4) and organised users (+6), who are the ones that have the highest self-esteem.

Regarding the subjective perception of happiness (orange dot), the differences are smaller, though once again organised users are the ones that display a higher prevalence of this feeling (+5), and escapist users are the ones that manifest lower levels of happiness (−4). Moderate users and impulsive users are right on the mean (0); hyperconnected users are slightly below it (−1), and social users are slightly above it (+2).

The smartphone use profiles are also associated with satisfaction with four aspects of life: leisure, work (which includes study), friends and family. In general, family and friends are the greatest sources of satisfaction. The following chart shows the percentage of the young adult population that is quite or very satisfied with these areas by their technology use profile. 

The organised user profile manifests higher levels of satisfaction: nearly 90% of young adults classified into this profile manifest high levels of satisfaction with their work, their family and their friends. Particularly striking is their satisfaction with work since, in other groups, we do not find any more than 75% of young adults with these levels of satisfaction. Conversely, the escapist user profile shows lower levels of satisfaction than the other profiles in all the studied areas.

What stands out is that leisure is generally the area with which young adults are less satisfied, despite the fact that smartphones afford hitherto unimaginable possibilities for digital leisure (films, series, social media, etc.). Particularly unsatisfied with leisure are social users and escapist users. Friends and family are the greatest sources of satisfaction, though once again it should be noted that levels of satisfaction with these areas are lower among escapist users. They are young adults who use technology to escape from their problems, so the use they make of smartphones and other devices may stem from their lack of satisfaction.

The study on which this article is based has enabled light to be shed on a little-explored aspect (see Kaye et al., 2020) of technology use and personal well-being: the importance of observing not only the amount of time young adults spend on using smartphones, but also the motives that lead to the different uses they make of devices. Through the construction of user profiles, it has been shown that the motives for young adults’ smartphone use are associated with certain levels of well-being, ill-being, and personal satisfaction with different areas such as leisure, work or study, friends and family.

It should be noted that this is a cross-sectional study: it takes a snapshot and does not study changes in the surveyed young adults’ behaviour over time. Consequently, it does not allow causality to be established between the different smartphone user profiles and the studied variables. Based on the information contained in this article, it would be premature to conclude that certain smartphone uses cause higher levels of ill-being, self-esteem or subjective happiness. Indeed, it cannot be ruled out that the exact opposite may be the case, i.e., that ill-being may cause a certain smartphone use, or that high self-esteem and subjective happiness may be responsible for some young adults making a more positive smartphone use. 

In the future, the intention is to continue with three further waves of the conducted study, which will enable the surveyed young adults’ smartphone use to be monitored over time. It is hoped that this will allow a possible causal relationship to be identified between the use that young adults’ make of smartphones and their personal well-being.

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KAYE, L. K., A. ORBEN, D. ELLIS, S. HUNTER and S. HOUGHTON (2020): «The conceptual and methodological mayhem of “screen time”», International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(10), 3661.

KWON, M., D.-J. KIM, H. CHO and YANG, S. (2013): «The Smartphone Addiction Scale: Development and Validation of a Short Version for Adolescents», PLOS ONE, 8(12), e83558. 

LOPEZ-FERNANDEZ, O. (2017): «Short version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale adapted to Spanish and French: Towards a cross-cultural research in problematic mobile phone use», Addictive Behaviors, 64, 275-280.

RASMUSSEN, E. E., N. PUNYANUNT-CARTER, J. R. LAFRENIERE., M. S. NORMAN and T. G. KIMBALL (2020): «The serially mediated relationship between emerging adults’ social media use and mental well-being», Computers in Human Behavior, 102, 206-213.