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‘Escape Route’, ‘Constant Reboot’ and ‘Tamagotchi’ as triumvirate of phubbing
The determinate of phubbing is internet addiction penetrating all young people’s life spheres.
Internet addiction is negatively correlated with friendliness, conscientiousness, extroversion,
openness and neuroticism, asshown by foreign researchers (Zamani, 2011; Kayis, 2016,
Zhou, 2016). Method.525 young Kostroma citizens (72,4% male, 27,6% female) participated
in a survey about smartphone addiction. We used Phubbing scale (Karadağ, 2015) with
Interpersonal Dependency Inventory, IDI (R. M. Hirschfeld, 1977). Factor analysis was performed
by dominant component analysis (varimax raw). Results.Having studied the results
of factor analysis, we concluded the following. Factor 1 ‘Escape Route’ includes statements
‘I’m busy with my mobile phone when I’m with friends’ – 0,708, ‘My eyes start wandering
on my phone when I’m together with others’ – 0,666, ‘My mobile phone use increases day
by day’ – 0,674. The impossibility of maintaining emotional connections and lack of selfconfidence
cause ‘absent presence’ and escape route. Factor 2 ‘Constant Reboot’ embraces
‘emotional support from others’ – 0,649 with a negative ‘I am always busy with my mobile
phone when I’m with my friends’ – 0,472 and ‘I’m busy with my mobile phone when I’m
with friends’ – 0,415. The young shuffle virtual and real companions constantly rebooting
emotional lines. Factor 3 ‘Tamagotchi’ unites statements ‘My phone is always within my
reach’ - 0,619, ‘When I wake up in the morning, I first check the messages on my phone’
- 0,567 and the negative ‘lack of self-confidence’ – 0,417. Smartphones are becoming the
youth’s constant companions always needing attention (a virtual pet).