Phone addiction test

The Smartphone Addiction Scale, short version · 10 questions

Ten statements from a questionnaire researchers use to screen for problem smartphone use. For each one, pick how much you agree, from 1, strongly disagree, to 6, strongly agree. The total adds up at the bottom as you go. Nothing you pick leaves this page.

1 Missing planned work due to smartphone use

2 Having a hard time concentrating in class, while doing assignments, or while working due to smartphone use

3 Feeling pain in the wrists or at the back of the neck while using a smartphone

4 Won't be able to stand not having a smartphone

5 Feeling impatient and fretful when I am not holding my smartphone

6 Having my smartphone in my mind even when I am not using it

7 I will never give up using my smartphone even when my daily life is already greatly affected by it.

8 Constantly checking my smartphone so as not to miss conversations between other people on Twitter or Facebook

9 Using my smartphone longer than I had intended

10 The people around me tell me that I use my smartphone too much.

Answered of 10 · total so far Your total: of 60

What the total means

The lowest possible total is 10 and the highest is 60. In the study the scale comes from, a total of 31 or more for boys and 33 or more for girls best separated the students clinical psychologists judged addicted to their phones from the rest.

Neither line is a verdict. Above it, 62% of the boys and 74% of the girls had been judged addicted, so plenty above the line were not. Below it, 97% and 96% had not.

The study was of 540 South Korean students in their second year of junior high school, average age 14.5, in 2013. Researchers have since tested the scale with university students and adults in other countries, Japan, China and Malaysia among them. The lines above are the original study's.

A screening, not a diagnosis

"Phone addiction" is an everyday name rather than a medical one. Neither of the manuals doctors diagnose from, the DSM-5 and the WHO's ICD-11, lists smartphone addiction as a condition. A questionnaire like this one says whether a closer look is worth having. If your phone is affecting your sleep, your work or the people around you, a doctor or a therapist is the right person to talk to.

Leaving a gap empty

Most of what helps is practical: the phone charged outside the bedroom, notifications only from people, the apps you reach for most off the home screen. And some time each day with nothing in it. Quiet Wall is a timer for that: ten minutes, the phone across the room, a blank wall, and a sound to bring you back. There is a 10 minute timer here on the site as well.

Where the questions come from

The ten statements are from Kwon M, Kim D-J, Cho H and Yang S, The Smartphone Addiction Scale: Development and Validation of a Short Version for Adolescents, PLoS ONE 8(12): e83558, 2013, published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. They are reprinted as published. The layout, the adding up and the explanations on this page are ours.