Prevalence and Predictors of Problematic Smartphone Use among High School Students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Students can use their smartphone for different purposes: to take notes, read PDFs, documents, and articles and as source of news. But due to excessive engagement with social media and entertainment, students are more prone to experience problems. Because there is no published research on the topic, the aim of the current study is to fill the research gap by determining the prevalence and predictors of problematic smartphone use among high school students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A cross sectional study was conducted at randomly selected four government and four private high schools found in Arada and Gulele Sub Cities of Addis Ababa from May of 1st to 30th of 2025 among 422 high school students. Systematic random sampling technique was applied to select the study participants. We conducted data analyses using independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, linear regression analyses and multinomial logistic regression. The results indicated that about 41.2% of the students had problematic smartphone use. Students from government schools (AOR 1.76, 95%CI (1.13, 2.74)), those who used their smartphone every day (AOR 95%CI; 2.64 (1.55, 4.49) and those who didn’t use it for educational purpose (AOR 1.88 (95%CI (1.18, 3.02)) showed significant association with problematic smartphone use. Therefore, awareness creation on the PSU and the risk factors is warranted.