mobile phone use patterns amongst university students: its correlates and relationship to psychological health

introduction: the mobile phone is viewed as an important communication tool and has become an integral part of the iranian society and they are increasingly using the mobile phone rather than the fixed line telephone as a way to keep in touch with their family, friends, colleagues and business associates. today, mobile phones are equipped with other features that allow further communication and entertainment such as the short mobile phone use. methods: this research was carried out with the purpose of studying the relationship between mobile-phone use and psychological health in university students. the sample consisted of 1500 students in three universities. they were chosen via randomize sampling method. results: the research instruments included cell-phone use scale, ghq-28 and rosenberg self steem scale. to study the simple and multiple relationships of general health and cell phone use multiple correlations were used. findings indicated that, generally, the general health variants had a significant relationship between mobile-phone use in students (p<0.05). conclusion: additional analyses showed that students with lower self-esteem and spent more time on the phone were more likely to be problematic phone users. adolescents who spend more time on their mobile phone were also more vulnerable to psychological disturbances. it seems necessary to further uncover underlying factors that influence students’ mobile phone behavior, and the consequences of intense mobile phone use on their psychological well-being. keywords: mobile phone use pattern, problem mobile phone use, general health, self-esteem university student