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BACKGROUND: Adolescents are described as digital natives, with smartphones deeply embedded in their lives. However, limited literature on smartphone usage patterns exists. This study examined adolescents' smartphone usage patterns and their physical, psychosocial, and cyber‐behavioral profiles. METHODS: We used latent profile analysis and a person‐centered approach to investigate 11 items on smartphone use purpose and use time. Participants were 2324 first‐year middle‐school students (aged 13 years) from a nationally representative dataset. RESULTS: Four distinct profile groups were observed: minimalist users, entertainment users, social users, and multifunctional users. The 4 profiles differed by gender and physical (physical activity and obesity), psychosocial (relationships with their parents, depression, and academic lethargy), and cyber‐behavioral (smartphone use time, computer use time, and cyber delinquency) status. IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL HEALTH POLICY, PRACTICE, AND EQUITY: Our findings have key research and real‐world implications for developmental psychologists and school health providers, specifically for those who work with adolescents, to address concerns regarding adolescents' smartphone use. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents use smartphones at varying times and for various purposes. A better understanding of adolescents' smartphone usage and purposes can help parents and school health providers develop and implement interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issue addressed: Caregivers have a crucial role to play in keeping children safe at public swimming pool facilities, with the most common factor contributing to childhood drowning being a lapse in adult supervision. Methods: A mixed methods approach was used to collect observations (n = 301) and interviews (n = 10) with caregivers of children aged 0‐10 years at two public swimming pool facilities located in the Perth metropolitan area, Western Australia (WA). Results: Of the 449 children observed, children aged 6‐10 years were significantly less likely to be provided with ideal supervision (26%) compared to younger children aged 0‐5 years (62%). Of the caregivers who were using their mobile phone while supervising children (n = 100, 22% of children observed), none provided ideal supervision. Overall supervision levels among caregivers differed with gender, with only 44% (n = 74) of female caregivers providing ideal supervision, compared to 72% (n = 96) of male caregivers. The 10 interviews revealed several themes, including the following: caregivers' perceptions of their supervision responsibilities; barriers to supervision; and awareness and perceptions of a communications campaign designed by the Royal Life Saving WA Branch, known as Watch Around Water (WAW). Conclusion: Caregiver supervision at public swimming pools remains an important issue, particularly the use of mobile phones and its deleterious impact on supervision. The WAW program plays an integral role in educating caregivers of supervision responsibilities. Furthermore, this study adds to the limited evaluation of the WAW program, and thus will help guide future improvements to ensure caregiver supervision is consistent. So what?: Further research is needed to create strategies to reduce mobile phone use among caregivers, in order to provide safer swimming environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problematic mobile phone use is characterized by its "impulsive" nature; users engage in it despite their negative attitude toward it. From a behavioral-economic perspective, this attitude-behavior discrepancy is generated by competing contingencies that involve smaller-sooner social reinforcers associated with mobile phone use and larger-later prosocial reinforcers potentially compromised by phone use. Based on this conceptualization, the reinforcer-pathology model of problematic mobile phone use is proposed, which posits that such phone use stems from excessive delay discounting of the social and prosocial reinforcers and/or excessive demand for the social reinforcers. A secondary data analysis of previously published studies was conducted, with the novel addition of principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis of these data. The results generated evidence that supports the reinforcer-pathology model proposed in this article. Based on the theoretical analyses and accumulated empirical evidence, theory-driven prevention and intervention strategies for problematic mobile phone use are proposed. Overall, the reinforcer-pathology model of problematic mobile phone use provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing this growing issue., (© 2023 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.)

Background: The risks and opportunities associated with the use of technologies are of growing research interest. Patterns of technology usage illuminate these opportunities and risks. However, no studies have assessed the usage patterns (frequency, duration, and intensity) and related factors in young people with intellectual disabilities. Methods: Questionnaires on Internet and cell phone usage patterns, the Internet Over‐Use Scale and the Cell‐Phone Over‐Use Scale, as well as the Beck Depression Inventory were filled out in one‐on‐one interviews of 216 youth with intellectual disabilities. Results: Young people with disabilities make more social and recreational rather than educational use of these tools, and show higher rates of excessive use of both technologies than a comparison group of 410 young people without disabilities. Also, their overuse is associated with other unhealthy behaviors. Conclusion: The framework of support needs of people with disabilities should be considered to promote healthy Internet and cell phone use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background For truck drivers, distracted driving is a workplace behavior that increases occupational injury risk. We propose safety climate as an appropriate lens through which researchers can examine occupational distracted driving. Methods Using a mixed methods study design, we surveyed truck drivers using the Safety Climate Questionnaire (SCQ) complemented by semi-structured interviews of experts on distracted driving and truck safety. Safety climate was assessed by using the entire SCQ as an overall climate score, followed by factor analysis that identified the following safety climate factors: Communications and Procedures; Management Commitment; and Work Pressure. Results In multivariate regression, the overall safety climate scale was associated with having ever experienced a crash and/or distraction-involved swerving. Interview participants described how these SCQ constructs could affect occupational distracted driving. Conclusion To reduce distraction-related crashes in their organizations, management can adhere to safe policies and procedures, invest in engineering controls, and develop safer communication procedures. Am. J. Ind. Med. 58:746-755, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated the effects of prompting, goal setting, and feedback on following headway of young drivers in a simulated driving environment and assessed whether changes produced in following headway were associated with reductions in hard braking when drivers were and were not using cell phones. Participants were 4 university students. During baseline, drivers spent half of the time talking on cell phones while driving. At the start of the intervention, drivers were prompted to increase following headway while on the cell phones and were provided a specific target for following headway. Drivers were given feedback on increasing following headway when on cell phones at the end of each session. The intervention package was associated with an increase in following headway and a decrease in hard braking when participants were on and off the cell phones. Cell phone use did not affect any of the measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to determine whether cluster analysis could be used to identify distinct subgroups of text message users based on behavioral economic indices of demand for text messaging. Cluster analysis is an analytic technique that attempts to categorize cases based on similarities across selected variables. Participants completed a questionnaire about mobile phone usage and a hypothetical texting demand task in which they indicated their likelihood of paying an extra charge to continue to send text messages. A hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted on behavioral economic indices, such as demand intensity, demand elasticity, breakpoint, and the maximum expenditure. With the cluster analysis, we identified 3 subgroups of text message users. The groups were characterized by (a) high intensity and low elasticity, (b) high intensity and medium elasticity, and (c) low intensity and high elasticity. In a demonstration of convergent validity, there were statistically significant and conceptually meaningful differences across the subgroups in various measures of mobile phone use and text messaging. Cluster analysis is a useful tool for identifying and profiling distinct, practically meaningful groups based on behavioral indices and could provide a framework for targeting interventions more efficiently., (© 2019 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.)

This manuscript reviews the extant literature on key issues related to mobile gambling and considers whether the potential risks of harm emerging from this platform are driven by pre-existing comorbidities or by psychological processes unique to mobile gambling. We propose an account based on associative learning that suggests this form of gambling is likely to show distinctive features compared with other gambling technologies. Smartphones are a rapidly growing platform on which individuals can gamble using specifically designed applications, adapted websites or text messaging. This review considers how mobile phone use interacts with psychological processes relevant to gambling, the games users are likely to play on smartphones, and the interactions afforded by smartphones. Our interpretation of the evidence is that the schedules of reinforcement found in gambling interact with the ways in which people tend to use smartphones that may expedite the acquisition of maladaptive learned behaviours such as problem gambling. This account is consistent with existing theories and frameworks of problem gambling and has relevance to other forms of mobile phone use., (© 2016 The Authors. British Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the British Psychological Society.)