Screen Addiction and Personality Traits Writing Assignment

Lab report
In this lab report your task is to write up a study that has investigated the extent to which an individual's personality and smartphone use is related to their subjective wellbeing. To orient you to this task, an overview of the rationale underlying the study is provided below.
1.1 The research topic
In recent years, the use of smart technologies in research and therapy has been increasing dramatically. Smartphones and other portable internet‐enabled devices are routinely used for real‐time data collection and dissemination of online therapeutic programs. Smart devices are proving to be very successful in supporting people with mental health concerns, with apps and programs that are designed to encourage mindfulness, supportive professional and peer networks, as well as ‘bite size' therapeutic videos. In this sense, smart technologies can have a positive impact on wellbeing.
Over the past decade however, a completely novel individual and social issue has been emerging – smartphone addiction (also referred to as internet addiction, screen addiction etc.). Social media and easy access to the online world has become a ubiquitous and normal part of life, however our consumption of internet‐based media is far from what might be considered normal. In Australia, data* from 2015 indicated that:
There are approximately 21 million mobile handset subscribers in Australia. 
Australian households currently have an average of 9 internet‐connected devices
At peak times, households have 8 different applications simultaneously connecting to the internet over multiple devices
77% of young people aged 1‐17 play video games
71% of those aged 18‐64 play video games
45% of social media users check their account early in the morning
41% of social media users check their accounts before going to sleep
24% of social media users check their account more than 5 times a day
*Data retrieved from Australian Government, Department of Communications and the Arts.
We are a nation of screen users, and, in many cases, excessive screen use can become a dependence or clinical addiction. Addiction to screens has been associated with decreases in productivity, social functioning, positive affect, and wellbeing. In the case of adolescents, the potential developmental impacts of screen addiction (for example, neurological development, social skills development, intimate relationship formation etc.) will not be known for many years to come. We are in the midst of completely new social paradigm.
So, here's the problem. How do researchers and clinicians optimize the benefits of digital technologies without adding to the growing problem of screen addiction? Is there an ethical consideration we are overlooking when we use digital technologies to collect data or implement virtual treatments? A salient example would be the use of digital technology to research and develop treatments for addiction (e.g. substance, gambling, sex etc.). Is there a risk that in treating one addition we inadvertently encourage the development of another?
In order to look more closely at this issue, we will investigate whether the Big 5 personality traits are related to excessive screen use, and subjective wellbeing. Your task is to think about what Big 5 factors may be related to excessive screen use and why, but also which factors may also be related to subjective wellbeing, and why.
The papers we have supplied you with reflect this issue. You will need to do some research yourself in addition to these publications.
1. Realising the technological promise of smartphones in addiction research and treatment: An ethical review.
Capon, Hall, Fry, & Carter, 2016.
2. Specific virtues as predictors of smartphone addiction among Chinese Undergraduates.
Lian & You, 2017
3. Craving Facebook? Behavioural addiction to online social networking and its association with emotion regulation deficits.
Hormes, Kearns, & Timko, 2014.
1.2 Questionnaire Information
We will use the following questionnaires in our survey, although we may not use all of them in our eventual analysis. You are welcome to look up the associated papers, but the below information will be enough for you to write up your materials section.
i. International Personality Items Pool (IPIP) NEO
The IPIP NEO is a 300 item self‐report inventory that provides a reasonably faithful measure of the Big 5 factors – Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness to experience – and their 30 facets. The IPIP subscales correlate well with the NEO‐PI‐R factors and facet subscales (more info on this in the seminar). Items are answered on a 5‐point Likert scale, ranging from 1= ‘Very inaccurate' to 5 = ‘Very accurate'.
Why don't we just use the NEO‐PI‐R to measure the Big 5 you ask? The NEO‐PI‐R and other broad‐bandwidth inventories are proprietary instruments, whose items are copyrighted by the test authors. For us to use the NEO‐PI‐R (or any version of Costa & McCrae's inventory), we would need to pay‐per‐use. Unfortunately, that makes research on a large scale pretty expensive.
ii. Ryff's Psychological Wellbeing Scale (Ryff, 1995)
This scale is a 42 item self‐report measure of psychological wellbeing across six dimensions: Autonomy, Environmental Mastery, Personal Growth, Positive Relations, Purpose in Life, and Self‐acceptance. Items are scored on a 6‐point Likert scale, ranging from 1= ‘Strongly disagree' to 6 = ‘Strongly agree'
iii. Subjective Wellbeing Scale (Diener, Lucas, & Oishi, 2002)
This 5 item self‐report scale assesses an individual's overall sense of satisfaction and contentedness with their life. It provides a glabal measure of subjective wellbeing. The five items are scored on a 7‐point Likert scale, ranging from 1= ‘Strongly disagree' to 7 = ‘Strongly agree'
iv. Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al., 1998)
The PANAS is a 20 item self‐report scale where respondents rate their feelings and emotions over the past week. The scale can also be used to rate immediate feelings (e.g. ‘how alert do you feel right now'), but this study will rate feelings and emotions over the course of one week. Items are scored on a 6‐point Likert scale, ranging from 1= ‘Strongly disagree' to 6 = ‘Strongly agree'
v. Smartphone Usage Scale (Bianchi & Phillips, 2005)
This 54 item self‐report scale incorporates a number of subscales, including the Mobile Phone Problem Use Scale, Self‐regulation scale, Habitual Smartphone Behaviour Scale, Process Usage Scale, and Social Usage Scale. All items are answered on a 5‐point Likert scale apart from the Mobile Phone Problem Use Scale, which utilises a 10‐point Likert Scale.
1.3 Assessment criteria
The criteria are generic lab report criteria, designed to ensure that the guidance you get in all units is the same. Broadly, your Lab Report will be evaluated according to:
How well your abstract provides a concise but meaningful description of the study
How well you explaining the importance of the study, and how it addresses a problem or gap in the literature,
How well your method section describes what was done to answer the research question
How well your results section describes how the data were prepared and analysed, as well as what was found,
How well you interpret and synthesise the results in your discussion, factoring in the aims, hypotheses, and broader literature
Your overall writing style (i.e. scientific writing)
1.4 Word count & number of articles
Your Lab Report should be approximately 2000 words. You can be over or under by 10%, but do try to stick to 2000 as much as possible.
At third year level, you will need to increase the number of resources you access from previous years. Keep in mind, that if you go on to 4th year and beyond, the number of resources you need to integrate into your writing jumps pretty significantly, so this is a good chance to hone your research and concise writing skills! There is no minimum number of articles to incorporate, but in order to write a reasonable lab report, you would need around 5‐10 papers. We will give you three papers to get you started, then the rest is up to you. Remember, we are not so much looking at how many papers you use, but how you use the papers you choose.
Limit your search of the literature to the past 5‐10 years so that you are not overwhelmed with papers to review. Many of the papers you find in your search might not be relevant once you read them, so make sure you choose carefully.
Given the word limit, you will not be able to critique each of these fully, however there will be a few papers that are highly relevant that you should focus on more fully than some of the others. You could consider the similarities between the papers so that you might group them together in some way to discuss them.
Your review should provide a critique of what has been found in the literature to date on the topic and any gaps there are in that literature.
Assessment resource links:
http://rpsychologist(dot)com/d3/correlation/
https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=nryDvA2oJo4&=&feature=youtu.be
https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=XNAfye_2oHw&=&feature=youtu.be