Using tablet in solitude for stress reduction: An examination of desire for aloneness, leisure boredom, tablet activities, and location of use

Alone with My Phone: Exploring Links Between Solitude, Technology Use, and Socio-Emotional Functioning in Adolescents

“…The results from this study have extended the limited previous empirical research (e.g., Leung, 2015;Wang et al, 2012) directly exploring links between solitude and technology use.…”

“…SIT are becoming increasingly integrated into society, influencing experiences, perceptions, and feelings of being truly alone. Today, individuals can simultaneously maintain physical solitude and virtual social interactions (Leung, 2015). A previous study with university students found that solitude increases social media use, where this use can impact certain socio-emotional outcomes while alone (Wang, Tchernev, & Solloway, 2012).…”

“…In particular, solitude can facilitate increased mediated activities (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 1978;Morahan-Martin & Schumacher, 2003), influencing the experience of certain socioemotional experiences. It has been found that those who use technology for social purposes have reported this use can help to reduce stress (Leung, 2015), suggesting that SIT use may influence both emotional needs (Wang et al, 2012) and social experiences. Therefore, based on the existing literature and overall benefits of the "social components" of active technology use, it was hypothesized that adolescents who spend too much or too little time alone and use technology actively would serve as a protective role towards each socio-emotional outcome of interest (i.e., loneliness, social connectedness, positive affect, negative affect).…”

“…As previously mentioned, the technology use scale was created based on content from several assessments of technology use and SIT platforms. For these previous measures, protocols for composing subscales have been inconsistent with most researchers aggregating items solely on a conceptual basis (e.g., Burke et al, 2010), tailored around an SIT application (e.g., Frison & Eggermont, 2016), or from focus groups discussing common technology behaviours and activities (e.g., Leung, 2015). Only a few studies have relied upon the results of factor analysis (e.g., Matook et al, 2015).…”

Investigating predictors of smartphone dependency symptoms and effects on academic performance, improper phone use and perceived sociability

“…Leisure boredom is a subjective perception that leisure experiences are not frequently exciting, varied or novel (Iso-Ahola and Weissinger, 1990). Young people tend to have free time for unstructured socialising which is theoretically associated with high levels of boredom (Leung, 2015), a risk factor for addiction (Moore and Ohtsuka, 2000). When people have too much time and experience high levels leisure boredom, they are likely to engage in deviant activities such as drug (Iso-Ahola and Crowley, 1991) and alcohol (Orcutt, 1984) abuse.…”