PM331. Associations between self control, smoking, alcohol drinking, internet, smartphone addiction among South Korean Adolescents

Abstract

Abstract Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between self control, smoking, alcohol drinking, internet, smartphone addiction among a sample of South Korean middle school students. Methods: An epidemiologic survey was conducted in a sample of 1,852 students (grades 7 through 9) from five middle schools in Gwangju, South Korea. We obtained data using a self reported questionnaire asking about demographic information, self control, smoking, alcohol drinking, internet, smartphone addiction. Our final analytical sample was 1,629 cases with complete information, after deleting the cases with missing values. Results: A standard deviation increase in low self-control, the expected count of students’ drinking increases by 64.2%. With regard to smoking, a standard deviation increase in low self-control equates to a 189.9% increase in the expected count of students’ smoking. In the Internet addiction model, the magnitude of the effect of low self-control (β = .21) was far greater than that for peer delinquency (.03) and attachment to parents (-.09). The low self-control scale accounted for 35% of the total explained variance in Internet addiction. In smartphone addiction model, low self-control demonstrates the greatest magnitude of the standardized regression coefficient (.28) among all predictors, accounting for 39% of the total variance explained by the model. Conclusion: Our findings show that low self-control is a significant predictor of alcohol drinking, smoking, internet and smartphone addiction even when accounting for peer influences, parental attachment, and other statistical controls. Future research is needed about association between self control and deviant or addictive analogous behaviors. Keywords: Self control, internet addiction, smartphone addiction, adolescents, South Korea