RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY TRAITS OF EXCESSIVE SMARTPHONE USED ADOLESCENTS AND ALTERED RESTING STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY IN CORE BRAIN NETWORKS
Authors: Hu *Min Kyung , Song Kyeong Seob , Chun Ji-Won , Kim Dai Jin 
Published: February 2025

Background

In current days, smartphone use is inevitable in everyday life and has increased drastically over recent decades not only in adults but also in adolescents. Even though smartphone provides convenience and produces personal pleasure, the potential causable problems due to excessive smartphone use (ESU) of adolescents have been reported continuously. As ESU of adolescents became one of the important social issue, the connection between specific personality traits and ESU is being studied continuously.

Aims & Objectives

This study explored whether altered resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) is related to personality traits and other psychological factors in adolescents demonstrating ESU compared to healthy controls (HCs).

Methods

Thirty six adolescents (38.7%) were prone to ESU and fifty seven adolescents were HCs. Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale for Adolescents (S-scale) was used to measure ESU and adolescent version of temperament and character inventory (JTCI) was used to measure personality traits in this study. For rsFC analysis, the left and right central executive network (CEN), the salience network (SN) and default mode network (DMN) were included in the analysis in order to investigate the brain networks related to personality traits that impact ESU. In addition, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), midcingulate cortex (MCC) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc), which are related to reward processing and cognitive control, were included in the analysis in order to examine the brain networks related to temperament and character subscales of TCI that influence ESU.

Results

Mean scores of ESU adolescents were lower in persistence than HCs. In addition, HCs group had a positive correlation with novelty seeking and a negative correlation with persistence in bivariate correlation analysis. However, ESU group had no significant correlation with TCI personality traits. In the rsFC, ESU group showed lower functional connectivity in brain regions related to the salience network compared with HCs. ESU showed lower connectivity between the left middle cingulate cortex (MCC) and left superior parietal lobule, and between the left MCC and left postcentral gyrus. In addition, lower connectivity between the left posterior cingulate gyrus and right precentral gyrus and between the left orbital frontoinsula and right precentral gyrus were shown in ESU.

Discussion & Conclusions

This study suggests that smartphone proneness was associated with low persistence in terms of temperament and it was engaged in neurofunctional alterations.

References

Chun, J.W., Choi, J., Cho, H., Choi, M.R., Ahn, K.J., Choi, J.S. and Kim, D.J., 2018. Role of frontostriatal connectivity in adolescents with excessive smartphone use. Frontiers in psychiatry, 9, p.437.

Chun, J.W., Park, C.H., Kim, J.Y., Choi, J., Cho, H., Jung, D.J., Ahn, K.J., Choi, J.S., Kim, D.J. and Choi, I.Y., 2020. Altered core networks of brain connectivity and personality traits in internet gaming disorder. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 9(2), pp.298-311.

Kheradmand, A., Amirlatifi, E.S. and Rahbar, Z., 2023. Personality traits of university students with smartphone addiction. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, p.1083214.