Journal of Education & Social Sciences

Journal of Education & Social Sciences

ISSN: 2410-5767 (Online)

ISSN: 2414-8091 (Print)

Impact of Smartphone Addiction on Students’

Academic Achievement in Higher Education
Institute of Pakistan
Affiliation:
Syed Ali Raza
Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia. E-mail: syed [email protected]
Sara Qamar Yousufi
The Academy, Karachi. E-mail: [email protected]
S. M. Tariq Rafi
Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Karachi. E-mail: tariq [email protected]
Syeda Tuba Javaid
The University of Salford, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]

Manuscript Information
Submission Date: October 01, 2019
Acceptance Date: January 20, 2020
Publication Date: February 25, 2020

Citation in APA Style:

Raza, S. A., Yousufi, S. Q., Rafi, S. M. T., & Javaid, S. T. (2020). Impact of Smart-
phone Addiction on Students’ Academic Achievement in Higher Education Institute of
Pakistan, Journal of Education & Social Sciences, 8 (1), 1-14.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20547/jess0812008101

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Journal of Education & Social Sciences
Vol. 8(1): 1-14, 2020
DOI: 10.20547/jess0812008101

Impact of Smartphone Addiction on Students’ Academic Achievement

in Higher Education Institute of Pakistan

Syed Ali Raza ∗ Sara Qamar Yousufi † S. M. Tariq Rafi ‡

Syeda Tuba Javaid §

Abstract: The present study investigates the role of smartphone usage, self-regulation, general self-
efficacy and cyber loafing on university student’s smartphone addiction and its impact on students’ academic
achievements. The data has been collected from 453 students of a private sector higher education institute
of Pakistan through an online questionnaire. The results of the study indicated that both smartphone usage
and cyber loafing positively and significantly affects smartphone addiction. The effect of self-regulation was
negative but significant on smartphone addiction and cyber loafing. Moreover, the effect of general self-
efficacy on cyber loafing was positive and significant. However, smartphone addiction has no significant effect
on student’s academic achievement. The findings conclude that smartphone addiction decreases academic
performance of students as students lower their focus on academic learning and get addicted to smartphones
for cyber loafing. Therefore, the universities should make policy regulations for students regarding the use
of smartphones in the classroom. Also, students should be provided awareness about the negative impact
of smartphone addiction on their personal and academic life, and also on their health through a variety of
awareness seminars.
Keywords: Smartphone addiction, smartphone usage, self-regulation, cyber loafing, academic
achievement, general self-efficacy, university students.

Introduction
The 21st Century has witnessed the increasing advancement of technology leaving an im-
print in all aspects of an individual’s life. One of this technological advancement is the
smartphone and its numerous applications that offer quick access to Internet and Social
Media through apps such as Facebook, Whatsapp, and Twitter. Information technology
has changed the lifestyle of an individual and their technology adoption. The innovation
in information technology provides an opportunity to produce unique products (Qazi,
Raza, & Shah, 2018). This fascination with smart gadgets has resulted in increased inter-
action of people with the technology which is even greater than with the people (Griffiths,
2000). Smartphones have evolved to the extent of becoming an integral part of people’s
life. Smartphones are used for many reasons such as communication, entertainment, pro-
∗ Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia. E-mail: syed [email protected]
† The Academy, Karachi. E-mail: [email protected]
‡ Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Karachi. E-mail: tariq [email protected]
§ The University of Salford, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]

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ductivity, social networking and gaming (Kwon et al., 2013). Smartphones not only have
replaced the traditional cell phones but have also replaced personal computers and many
other similar devices. People nowadays feel inseparable from their smartphones. In par-
allel with the increasing development of technology and excessive use of smartphones,
one of the major issues that researchers have observed and are working on is smartphone
addiction. Aljomaa, Qudah, Albursan, Bakhiet, and Abduljabbar (2016) conducted a sur-
vey on undergraduate students’ addiction level to smartphone and found that the level
of addiction was as high as 48%. Doorn (2011) states that this addiction level is a thought
provoking and significant finding in understanding the life of modern people.
Smartphone addiction leads directly or indirectly to many problems in education and
affects the classroom inside and outside. Using smartphone for irrelevant activities in the
classroom environment is called cyber loafing (Selwyn, 2008). Cyber loafing is associated
with smartphone addiction and is considered to be a negative factor which lowers the
academic success and performance of the students.
Furthermore, psychological features were also studied to understand the effect of
over-use of internet on peoples’ life and health (Whang, Lee, & Chang, 2003) and it was
found that most of the people don’t use their smart phones only to make phone calls but
also for playing games. They have developed a personal relationship with their smart-
phones which satisfies them only when they check or see their smartphones’ screens.
This is also a sign of addiction which is increasing day by day (Gökçearslan, Mumcu,
Haşlaman, & Çevik, 2016). Some theoretical work and empirical knowledge have been
provided to guide researchers in examining the social impacts of smart phone usage. It
was found that the use of social media is an important factor for smart phone addiction.
Apart from smart phone addiction, self-regulation and discipline of life also gets dam-
aged because of excessive use of smart phone. It is also very common at work place or in
schools that many people indulge in cyber loafing during office hours as individuals with
higher general self-efficacy have high self-efficacy level and technological competency.
A lot of researches have made relative contribution regarding the impact of smart
phone addiction and its usage among different sectors, ages and many more. A lot more
researches have also been conducted but no proper attention had been given to know the
impact of smart phone usage and its addiction on university students. Many people face
difficulty because of smart phone usage in education or at work place. Some people even
develop medical issues like back pain, wrist pain etc due to excessive use of smartphones
which can lead to dangerous accidents and prove fatal for someone’s life. This even raises
the concern of the parents towards their children and worries them about their grades and
non-serious attitude towards their studies.
In past years, many researches have been conducted to identify the problem of smart
phone addiction among adolescents. Most of the researches targeted the adolescents and
university students because this addiction is increasingly spreading in youngsters. Also,
the impact of smart phone addiction has been examined at workplace to check the compe-
tency levels of the employees. It was found that smart phone addiction also causes health
issues like emotional stress, sleep disturbance and academic failures (Lee, Cho, Kim, &
Noh, 2015). Another research examined the relationship of peers such as the student-
student relationship among adolescents due to smart phone addiction by calculating their

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self-esteem, ethics etc and found out that the youngsters who were more addicted to-
wards smart phone were likely to have many other problems and weaker relationship.
The use of smart phone in the universities for personal use even lead to academic failures
(Gökçearslan et al., 2016).
Smart phones are creating new interactive spaces for all aspects of education, shop-
ping, socializing, health and many other to make life easier but nowadays students use it
in a destructive way and are losing their control, interests, physical activities, communica-
tion and confidence which disturbs their studies as they are involved in cyber loafing dur-
ing class hours (Gökçearslan, Uluyol, & Şahin, 2018). Furthermore, the discussion over
the smart phones has taken over personal discussions which results in losing confidence.
It was also observed that male students are more affected by smart phone addiction than
females students as they neglected their work and studies but females didn’t often do
that. The problem of parent and children’s relation was also seen towards smart phone
addiction that the parents were also getting addicted towards smart phones and were not
giving enough attention to their children’s needs and upbringing.
To identify that how smart phone addiction is effecting university students we con-
ducted this research with the help of some variables to know the impact. After reading
many research papers and analyzing their results it was concluded that the main problem
of smart phone addiction among university students was due to the misuse which lead
to a few health issues as well. Many factors were used for examining the problem. The
reason for conducting this research is to find the reasons that why smart phone addic-
tion is increasing in the university students and to find its solutions. We identified that
still some more variables should have been added for analyzing this addiction among
university students and adolescents.
This research will be beneficial for the students as they will gain a proper knowledge
on the effects of mobile phones in their academic performance. The teachers are known
as the second parents of their students. Therefore, they will be able to learn the effects of
mobile phones addiction in the academic performance of the students and will be enlight-
ened on how to control, discipline and teach their students. Parents are the guardians of
their children’s life and with this research they will be able to know and learn the effects
of mobile phone addiction so that their academic performance could be enhanced and
they will be able to guide their children in a right way.

Literature Review
Theoretical Background
There are several theories that explain technology and smartphone addiction. This study
has adopted the theory of behaviorism. The theory of behaviorism is based on learning
behavior of an individual that can be controlled and changed. Smartphone addiction
is a learned behavior and occurs when students surround themselves in the environ-
ment where everyone is addicted to using smartphones for socializing with others. To
make themselves attractive, they start socializing with people on social networking sites

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and spend most of their time using smartphone for activities not related to their work
and spend less time on their studies. This behavior affects their personal and academic
life. Therefore, if we guide people or warn them by creating awareness about the disad-
vantages of smartphone addiction on their health, personal life and academic life, they
can change their behaviors. Various researches on smartphone addiction have been con-
ducted and numerous variables have also been taken into consideration. These include:
user characteristics; stress in life (Chiu, 2014); academic success; learning (Lee et al., 2015);
and self-regulation.

Hypothesis Development
Smartphone Usage and Smartphone Addiction
The usage of smartphones by younger generation is higher as compared to the older ones
(Kwon et al., 2013). The younger generation is considered to be the wired generation, as
they use smartphones to get in touch and stay connected with each other and to conduct
most of their activities with the help of smartphones (Iacobucci & Churchill, 2010). Thus,
the tendency of smartphone addiction is higher in younger people. Venkatesh, Al Jemal,
and Al Samani (2017) in their study conclude that longer duration of smartphone usage
is significantly associated with smartphone addiction. A Smartphone application devel-
ops the habit in people to continuously check their phones and this eventually turns into
addiction (Raza, Umer, Qazi, & Makhdoom, 2018). Thus, we propose the following hy-
pothesis:

H1 : Smartphone usage has a positive effect on smartphone addiction.

Self-regulation and Smartphone Addiction

Self-regulation refers to self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions that are planned
and adapted for the purpose of achieving personal goals. People who fail to self-regulate
increase their usage of social media which turns into an addiction. Gökçearslan et al.
(2016) states that the students with high self-regulation skills show lower smartphone ad-
dictive behavior. Moreover, Kanthawongs, Jabutay, Upalanala, and Kanthawongs (2016)
in their study, concluded that self-regulation does not have significant effect on smart-
phone addiction. Also, Van Deursen et al., (2015) states that low levels of self-regulation
lies behind the risk of addiction to smartphone. Therefore, we propose the following hy-
pothesis:

H2 : Self-regulation has a negative effect on smartphone addiction.

Self-regulation and Cyber Loafing

An important determinant of cyber loafing is the lack of self-regulation (Prasad, Lim, &
Chen, 2010). Self-regulation is a significant variable that resists cyber loafing behaviors.

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When individuals engage in cyber loafing, it is due to their inability to regulate their at-
tentional resources towards relevant tasks. Individuals having high self-regulatory skills
are able to keep their attention focused towards their tasks and are better able to resist the
temptation of cyberloafing. A study by Prasad et al. (2010) showed a negative relation be-
tween self-regulation and cyber loafing. Moreover, they also found negative relationship
between self-regulation and cyber loafing. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H3 : Self-regulation has a negative effect on cyber loafing.

Cyber loafing and Smartphone Addiction

The term Cyber loafing can be defined as “using internet during working hours but not
for the purpose of doing work”. Cyber loafing is a method used for coping with certain
workplace stressors. It allows the worker to take a break from the work environment and
then re-focus on their work. Cyber loafing also refers to the use of internet by students
during their lessons for activities that are not related to their studies. It leads to student’s
disengagement in class, lack of motivation, and discipline issues. According to Doorn
(2011), compulsive behavior of cyber loafing relates to addictive behavior. The study of
Gökçearslan et al. (2016) concludes that cyber loafing is related to smartphone addiction.
Moreover, Kim et al., (2015) stated that student’s potential for cyber loafing behaviors in-
creases due to the increased use of smartphones. The smartphone applications that trigger
the cyber loafing behavior are connected to the addictive behavior of smartphone. Thus,
we propose the following hypothesis:

H4 : Cyber loafing has a positive effect on smartphone addiction.

General Self-efficacy and Cyber Loafing

Self-efficacy refers to the individual’s ability to perceive themselves as being highly fo-
cused and having a clear vision of their goals. People who have high score on self-efficacy
believe that they can perform the given task in a better way. Prasad et al. (2010) states that
there is a positive effect of self-efficacy on cyber loafing. Moreover, the study of Garrett
and Danziger (2008) concludes that high self-efficacy levels results in more surfing on in-
ternet at the workplace. McCoy (2010) in their study found that the workers who had
high levels of self-efficacy possessed higher level of computer self-efficacy and are tech-
nological competent. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H5 : General self-efficacy has a positive effect on cyber loafing.

Smartphone Addiction and Student’s Academic Achievement

The lives of youth revolve around mobile phones nowadays. Kibona and Mgaya (2015)
in their study conclude that there is a negative relation between smartphone addiction
and academic performance of students. Najmi, Raza, and Qazi (2018) stated that English

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language and means of communication, teaching style and ways of assessments are the
important factors that affect the academic performance of the students. Hence, smart-
phone is also a crucial factor that might have a positive and negative impact. The more
the students get addicted to their smartphone the less they will focus on their studies
which will decrease their academic performance. Moreover, the continuous use of smart-
phone will also lower the learning level of students. Several studies have found negative
relationship between addiction and performance. Smartphone addiction also isolates the
students from their family and friends. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H6 : Smartphone addiction has a negative impact on student’s academic achievement.

Methodology
Research Model
The conceptual model of present study is demonstrated in Figure 1. The model demon-
strates the impact of smartphone usage, self-regulation, general self-efficacy on smart
phone addiction and cyber loafing. Furthermore, relationship between smartphone ad-
diction and students’ academic achievement is analyzed.

Figure 1
Conceptual Framework

Data Collection and Instrumentation

In total, 476 respondents participated and after data screening 23 responses were deleted
because they were incomplete or had missing values. The final sample size used in the
study was 453. The sample size is based on reporting of many researchers who stated

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that three or more items per variable and a sample size of 100 is enough for convergence.
According to Anderson and Gerbing (1984), the sample size of 150 is sufficient for a con-
vergent and proper solution. For SEM technique, Churchill Jr (1979) reported that it can
perform well even on the samples of 50-100. So, the sample size of our study is sufficient
to perform the estimations.
The data for this study is collected through a survey questionnaire. The questionnaire
was based on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The
items of all the variables were adapted from Gökçearslan et al. (2016). However, items of
students’ academic achievement were adapted from Liran and Miller (2019). Throughout
the data collection process, all respondents were requested to participate voluntarily and
assurance was given that their information will be kept confidential.

Data Analysis
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a technique used to assess the theory’s validity
with the help of statistical facts (Ringle, Wende, & Will, 2005). The two methods which
are usually used are; (i) covariance based and (ii) variance based. The present study com-
prised of the variance based method i.e., Partial least square (PLS) is employed to evaluate
the hypothetical model. The PLS-SEM is performed with the help of SmartPLS 3.2.9 soft-
ware (Ringle, Wende, Becker, et al., 2015) and a bootstrap resampling of 5000 subsamples
was used (Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011; Raza & Hanif, 2011; Raza, Qazi, & Umer, 2017).
PLS (SEM) is considered to be suitable for several research situations and complicated
models. The estimation was based on the guidelines of Anderson and Gerbing (1988) and
was performed in two steps. In step one, the reliability and validity of the model have
been assessed and in step two the assessment of structured model and hypotheses were
tested.

Demographics

Table 1
Demographic Profile
Demographic items Frequency Percentage
Age
18-22 198 43.70%
23-27 250 55.20%
28-32 5 1.10%
Gender
Male 251 55.41%
Female 202 44.59%
Education
Undergraduate 284 62.69%
Graduate 98 21.63%
Post Graduate 61 13.47%
Others 10 2.21%

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The data was collected from the students of a private sector university based in Karachi,
Pakistan. The details of demographic profiles are presented in Table 1. As seen from the
demographic characteristics, 55.41% respondents were male and remaining 44.59% were
female. In terms of age, 43.7% respondents come under the age group of 18-22 years,
55.2% lie at the age bracket of 23-27, and 1.1% belongs to the age group of 28-32 years.

Measurement Model
The competency of the model is evaluated by the (i) construct reliability (ii) individual
item reliability, (iii) convergent validity (iv) discriminant validity.

Table 2
Measurement Model Results
Cronbach’s Composite Average variance
Items Loadings
Alpha reliability extracted
CL1 0.739
CL2 0.725
CL3 0.741
CL CL4 0.710 0.818 0.865 0.712
CL5 0.707
CL6 0.740
CL7 0.629
GSE1 0.731
GSE2 0.707
GSE GSE3 0.757 0.815 0.865 0.518
GSE4 0.752
GSE5 0.726
GSE6 0.736
SAA1 0.707
SAA2 0.744
SAA SAA3 0.742 0.779 0.850 0.532
SAA4 0.746
SAA5 0.782
SPA1 0.711
SPA SPA2 0.817
SPA3 0.612 0.767 0.805 0.510
SPA4 0.724
SPU SPU1 0.779 0.738 0.780 0.640
SPU2 0.821
SR1 0.781
SR2 0.811
SR SR3 0.711 0.812 0.867 0.568
SR4 0.758
SR5 0.700
Notes: CL=Cyber loafing; SPA= Smartphone addiction; GSE= General Self-
Efficacy; SAA= Students’ academic achievement; SPU= Smartphone usage;
SR= Self-Regulation

As seen in table 2, all the variables have Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability,
greater than 0.7 which meets the criteria of Straub (1989).

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Table 3
Fornell-Larcker criterion
CL GSE SAA SPA SPU SR
CL 0.844
GSE 0.658 0.719
SAA 0.673 0.667 0.729
SPA 0.326 0.589 0.583 0.714
SPU 0.351 0.452 0.351 0.321 0.837
SR 0.484 0.655 0.548 0.433 0.605 0.753
Notes: CL=Cyber loafing; SPA=Smartphone addiction;
GSE=General Self-Efficacy; SAA=Students’ academic
achievement; SPU=Smartphone usage; SR=Self-Regulation

Table 4
Loadings and Cross Loadings
CL GSE SAA SPA SPU SR
CL1 0.739 0.516 0.525 0.445 0.336 0.425
CL2 0.725 0.547 0.554 0.449 0.280 0.498
CL3 0.741 0.519 0.420 0.569 0.250 0.372
CL4 0.710 0.426 0.322 0.493 0.180 0.202
CL5 0.707 0.451 0.455 0.612 0.139 0.297
CL6 0.740 0.530 0.546 0.618 0.250 0.309
CL7 0.629 0.426 0.415 0.407 0.276 0.216
GSE1 0.416 0.731 0.467 0.501 0.366 0.604
GSE2 0.392 0.707 0.448 0.408 0.319 0.495
GSE3 0.505 0.757 0.560 0.356 0.361 0.452
GSE4 0.473 0.752 0.448 0.298 0.317 0.414
GSE5 0.588 0.726 0.428 0.469 0.308 0.398
GSE6 0.615 0.736 0.527 0.498 0.302 0.506
SAA1 0.508 0.405 0.707 0.399 0.246 0.348
SAA2 0.449 0.568 0.744 0.449 0.293 0.396
SAA3 0.428 0.454 0.742 0.367 0.289 0.457
SAA4 0.560 0.493 0.746 0.485 0.212 0.375
SAA5 0.485 0.493 0.782 0.398 0.244 0.429
SPA1 0.531 0.454 0.339 0.711 0.112 0.258
SPA2 0.720 0.467 0.46 0.817 0.275 0.268
SPA3 0.366 0.384 0.52 0.612 0.37 0.437
SPA4 0.479 0.37 0.337 0.724 0.142 0.294
SPU1 0.307 0.384 0.267 0.244 0.779 0.471
SPU2 0.258 0.343 0.295 0.268 0.821 0.496
SR1 0.318 0.447 0.364 0.286 0.535 0.781
SR2 0.347 0.517 0.483 0.31 0.544 0.811
SR3 0.304 0.446 0.377 0.255 0.421 0.711
SR4 0.336 0.427 0.444 0.251 0.558 0.758
SR5 0.455 0.571 0.389 0.452 0.284 0.700
Note: CL=Cyber loafing; SPA=Smartphone addiction;
GSE=General Self-Efficacy; SAA=Students’ academic achi-
evement; SPU=Smartphone usage; SR=Self-Regulation

The individual reliability of all the variables is greater than 0.7 which is in accordance
with the criteria given by Churchill Jr (1979). According to him, each loading should be
higher than 0.7 and the loadings. The loading above 0.7 confirms the instrument relia-
bility. The convergent validity was evaluated through average variance extracted (AVE)
and all variables have a minimum value of 0.50 which meets the benchmark proposed by
Fornell and Larcker (1981).
The discriminant validity was assessed after the convergent validity by using (i) cross

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loading analysis (2) AVE. Table 3 represents the square root of AVE in the diagonal form
and satisfies the criteria of Fornell and Larcker (1981) that AVE should be higher than the
correlation between the variables. As seen from table 4 the individual items of each con-
struct are loaded higher in their relevant constructs as compared to the other constructs
and the cross loading difference is also higher than the recommended criteria of 0.1 (Qazi
et al., 2018). Thus, it explains the discriminant validity adequacy. Furthermore, table 4
shows that the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) shows that none of the
HTMT criteria are higher than 0.85 (Raza, Umer, & Shah, 2017).

Table 5
Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT)
CL GSE SAA SPA SPU SR
CL
GSE 0.196
SAA 0.037 0.345
SPA 0.180 0.383 0.137
SPU 0.174 0.518 0.359 0.751
SR 0.102 0.200 0.130 0.251 0.208
Notes: CL=Cyber loafing; SPA= Smartphone addict-
ion; GSE= General Self-Efficacy; SAA= Students’
academic achievement; SPU= Smartphone usage;
SR= Self-Regulation

Since, the measurement model confirms the convergent and discriminant validity;
thus, it confirms the variable distinctiveness and can be used to examine the structural
model.

Structural Model
The structural model was analyzed by examining the standardized paths. Each path cor-
responds to a hypothesis. The results are shown in table 7. Six hypotheses were generated
and out of six, five hypotheses are accepted and one is rejected which was: smartphone
addiction has a positive impact on students’ academic achievement.

Table 6
Result of Path Analysis
Hypothesis Regression Path Effect type SRW Remarks
H1 CL → SPA Direct Effect 0.704*** Supported
H2 GSE → CL Direct Effect 0.689*** Supported
H3 SPA → SAA Direct Effect 0.587*** Not Supported
H4 SPU → SPA Direct Effect 0.030** Supported
H5 SR → CL Direct Effect -0.034 Supported
H6 SR → SPA Direct Effect -0.076 Supported
Notes: CL=Cyber loafing; SPA= Smartphone addiction; GSE= General Self-
Efficacy; SAA= Students’ academic achievement; SPU= Smartphone usage;
SR= Self-Regulation

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Figure 2
Results of Path Analysis

Discussion
The present study examined the impact of smartphone usage, self-regulation, general self-
efficacy, and cyber loafing on smartphone addiction which impacts the student’s academic
achievements. The findings of the study shows that the smart usage and cyber loafing
has a positive and significant effect on smartphone addiction whereas self-regulation has
a significant but negative effect on smartphone addiction. Moreover, general self-efficacy
has positive and significant effect and self-regulation has negative and significant effect
on cyber loafing. Furthermore, smart phone addiction has positive but insignificant ef-
fect on student’s academic achievement. The interpretation of hypothesis is as follows:
The first hypothesis is about cyber loafing and smartphone addiction. The findings con-
clude that cyber loafing has positive and significant effect on smartphone addiction. The
results were similar to the study of Gökçearslan et al. (2016) and concludes that smart-
phone addiction and cyber loafing are related. The second hypothesis about general self-
efficacy and cyber loafing was also supported in this study and the findings were similar
to the study of Prasad et al. (2010) and concludes that the self-efficacy effects cyber loafing.
Another hypothesis of the study suggests that smartphone addiction have positive but in-
significant effect on student’s academic achievement because student’s when get addicted
to smartphones focus less on their studies which decreases their academic performance.
Similar findings were observed. The fourth hypothesis of the study concludes that smart-
phone usage have positive and significant effect on smartphone addiction. The findings
were similar to the study of Augner and Hacker (2012) and conclude that continuously
using smartphones makes people addictive towards their smartphones. The finding that
self-regulation has significant but negative effect on cyber loafing is similar to the study
of Prasad et al. (2010). The last hypothesis of the study concludes that self-regulation has
significant but negative effect on smartphone addiction. The findings were similar to the

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study of Jeong et al., (2016) and conclude that individuals lacking self-regulation skills are
more addicted to smartphone.

Conclusion, Implications and Recommendations

The present study examined the role of smartphone usage, self-regulation, general self-
efficacy, and cyber loafing on smartphone addiction which negatively effects student’s
academic achievement. The data has been collected from university students to observe
their level of smartphone addiction. Various tests have been done in this study to test the
relationship between the variables. The SmartPLS software has been used in the study
to test the hypotheses. The findings of the study found significant and positive relation-
ship between cyber loafing, smartphone usages and smartphone addiction. Moreover,
the findings found significant but negative relationship between self-regulation and cy-
ber loafing and between self-regulation and smartphone addiction. Furthermore the re-
lationship between general self-efficacy and cyber loafing was also supported. However,
the relationship between smartphone addiction and academic achievement was not sup-
ported. The findings of the study suggests that the academic institutions need to make
rules regarding the usage of smartphone in the classroom and should ensure that these
rules are implemented with consistency. Moreover, educational seminars should be held
in the university to increase the awareness of the negative impacts of smartphone addic-
tion on students’ academic performance. The study also suggests that decreased cyber
loafing in class might help students focus more on their studies and other educational
activities. The data for this study has been collected from students of single university.
Therefore, future studies should collect data from different universities and should re-
analyze the relationships and explore if it is the same between different disciplines or
backgrounds. This study has tested the direct relationships between independent and
dependent variables. Therefore, future studies can add mediation or moderation to the
research model to obtain different insights.

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