Assessing smartphone addiction among university students using the SAS-SV questionnaire: an approach based on network analysis.

Abstract

This study analyzed the structure of the SAS-SV questionnaire (Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version) through the responses of 400 Mexican university students from the Bachelor in Foreign Trade program. A network analysis was conducted to identify central symptoms, their interrelationships, and clusters. The results showed a dense network where the most central items, according to multiple indicators (Strength, Expected Influence, Betweenness), were Q5 ("I feel impatient and restless when I don't have my smartphone") and Q6 ("I have my smartphone on my mind even when I'm not using it"). These findings suggest that impatience, restlessness, and recurrent thinking are relevant components that connect different facets of smartphone addiction in this population.