A Scale on Nomophobia and its Relation with Social Interaction Anxiety among Young Adults

Description

Shangavi K.¹ and Vyjayanthi Mala² (Department of Psychology (Govt. Aided), PSG College of Arts & Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu¹ and Department of Psychology, Madras School of Social work, Chennai, Tamil Nadu²)

Nomophobia, an acronym for “no mobile phone phobia,” is the term used to describe the worry or anxiety people feel when they can’t use or are without their phones. This can involve leaving one’s phone at home, running out of battery life, or not having network coverage. A severe fear or anxiety about social situations is a characteristic of social interaction anxiety, a subtype of social anxiety disorder. The study aims to construct a tool for measuring nomophobia and investigating social interaction anxiety among young adults. The research design used in this study was ex post facto. Nomophobia Scale (Shangavi & Mala) was constructed based on attachment theory. Reliability was established by Cronbach’s alpha value, which is .0899, and the split-half reliability value was .822. Face validity was done by seven experts. The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (Mattick & Clarke, 1998) was utilized for data collection. A convenient sampling technique was used to collect the data from 345 individuals. The data was analyzed using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS), 20th version. The hypotheses were tested using Pearson’s correlation, independent t-tests, and one-way ANOVA. The study found that there is a significant positive relationship between nomophobia and social interaction anxiety. This study throws light on the insights into nomophobia. Through the development of a new measuring instrument, this study closes a significant knowledge gap by addressing the demands of practitioners and researchers who seek to comprehend participants’ anxiety of becoming disconnected from their phones.