International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

Frequency: 12

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 Volume 12, Issue 8 (August 2025), Pages: 101-109

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 Original Research Paper

A comparative study of national, gender, and academic differences in smartphone addiction among students from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE

 Author(s): 

 Shatha Abdulbaki 1, Hajer Harrathi 2, Mohamad A. Khasawneh 3, Mohammad A. Tashtoush 2, 4, *

 Affiliation(s):

  1Faculty of Educational and Psychological Sciences, Amman Arab University, Amman, Jordan
  2Faculty of Education and Arts, Sohar University, Sohar, Oman
  3Special Education Department, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
  4Department of Basic Sciences, AL-Huson University College, AL-Balqa Applied University, Salt, Jordan

 Full text

    Full Text - PDF

 * Corresponding Author. 

   Corresponding author's ORCID profile:  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2436-8155

 Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2025.08.010

 Abstract

This study presents a cross-cultural comparison of smartphone addiction among university students in four Arab countries: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Oman. It extends previous work by examining differences in addiction levels based on nationality, gender, and academic discipline. Data were collected from 513 students using the Smartphone Addiction Scale. Results confirm previously observed trends and reveal significant differences across the four countries, with Jordanian students reporting the highest levels of smartphone use, followed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman. The findings underscore the importance of cultural and demographic factors in understanding smartphone addiction and suggest the need for context-specific strategies to address this growing issue.

 © 2025 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords

 Smartphone addiction, Cross-cultural study, Arab countries, Student behavior, Prevalence differences

 Article history

 Received 9 March 2025, Received in revised form 1 July 2025, Accepted 13 July 2025

 Funding

This research is supported by King Khalid University (Grant number: RGP.2 / 110 /45). 

 Acknowledgment

No Acknowledgment. 

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia (Approval Date: 20/02/2024; Reference No. RGP.2 / 110 /45). All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Participation was voluntary, and all data were collected anonymously and kept confidential.

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

 Abdulbaki S, Harrathi H, Khasawneh MA, and Tashtoush MA (2025). A comparative study of national, gender, and academic differences in smartphone addiction among students from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 12(8): 101-109

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 Figures

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 Tables

  Table 1  Table 2  Table 3  Table 4  Table 5

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