The effect of self control and emotion regulation difficulties on the problematic smart phone use of young people

The use of smart phones is quite common among young people. This may sometimes cause problems. Different steps are being taken in the schools regarding the rules that students should follow for the use of telephone. However, student-oriented solutions are needed. The main aim of this study is to reveal the role of self-control, difficulties in emotion regulation and having pet on problematic smartphone use. The sample consisted of 296 university students. In this study, “Personal Information Form”, “Brief Self-Control Scale”, “Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale” and “Smartphone Addiction Scale” were utilized to gather data. According to the findings of the research, high self-control ability and having a pet reduces the time spent on the use of problematic smart phone, whereas the difficulty of emotion control increases it. Findings are discussed within the framework of the related literature and some self-control and emotion regulation exercises were suggested for curricula. internal consistency test-retest total correlation of the scale items internal consistency coefficient of the Turkish form of the scale is .94 and the internal consistency coefficient of the sub-dimensions change between .75 and .90. Test-retest reliability as .83 two-half test reliability was as The same sub-dimensions that were found in the original form of the scale were The items 1, 10, 20, are coded in reverse. In this study, alpha as for the whole scale. of and a Likert type scale which is graded between and The was into Turkish by Nebioğlu, Akbaba and Eroğlu items of were while the BSCS into and a 9-item form obtained, 4 of to the self-discipline subscale and 5 of which belong to impulsivity subscale. the high self-control. of two scales: self-discipline impulsivity. The reliability of the Turkish version of the BSCS to for the


Introduction
The changes in the curriculum are in the direction of technology, global awareness, foreign language skills and communication which provide competitive advantages in the international arena (Law, 2004).However, it is a fact that not all of the skills students acquired are in preferred areas today.As the use of smartphone has become widespread, new problems have arisen and an implicit program effect has begun to be observed in schools along with the official curriculum.Problematic smartphone use was observed in one out of every five students in the United States, and this problematic use was found to be related with low course grades and high substance abuse (Grant, Lust & Chamberlain, 2019).In a study conducted in Turkey, it was found that during the courses 84% of the university students kept their Smartphone on (Günal &Pekçetin, 2018).It is important to closely follow the technology and to be able to protect oneself from the harms of technology products such as smartphones.Teachers of technology-related courses may also be assigned with the tasks in helping students to avoid problematic smartphone use.This task may be performed by warning students, by taking preventative measures and by providing students with protective information.A study conducted in Turkey indicates that IT teachers of information technologies are expected to follow the developments in the IT area, to use them in their daily lives and to convey these to their students (Çiftçi, Çengel & Özkaya 2018).On the other hand, it could be expected from the teachers of related subjects to inform their students about the probable harms of technology and to help them to be prepared for better protection.

Problematic Use of Smartphones
"Problematic Smartphone use" is the use of smartphone by controlling them so intensively and frequently in a way that results in reduced social functioning.On average, we look at our smartphones' screens 70 times a day, we keep them nearby while we sleep and the very first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is to check our smartphone (Deloitte, 2016).In Turkey, the young use their smart phones twice as much compared to the group of people of 45 to 50 years old.The high population of young people in Turkey give pave to the smartphone use addiction (Deloitte, 2016).This situation may entail risks for the education system and learning processes.It could be predicted that the smartphone dependency would shorten the duration and quality of sleep and makes it difficult to concentrate on the material to be learned.
When the literature is reviewed, it could be seen that various terms are used in order to describe the intensive use of smartphone and in this study, the term of "problematic Smartphone use" is preferred.When it is taken into consideration that smartphone are used by different age groups, the use of these devices is above normal levels, that is the problematic use of Smartphone should be accepted as a serious problem that may lead various physical and psychological problems (Park & Lee, 2012).Therefore, as it could be inferred from the available data, the problematic use of the smartphone appears to be a major problem on the education systems both in Turkey and in the World because the students usually keep their smartphone with them in the classrooms during the classes and various tempting applications may cause concentration impairment.

Self-control
One of the factors that might reduce the problematic use of smartphone is to increase the self-control skills of individuals.The situations in which planned, opted and purposeful actions are performed instead of automatic, instantaneous reactions are the situations where self-control is executed (Murtagh &Todd, 2004).Self-control is considered as the ability of tolerating short-term discomforts in order to achieve long term objectives.One may suppress one's automatic reaction on the face of a stimulus, may contain oneself, may opt for a reaction amongst the possible alternatives and may react differently than expected typical reaction.It is possible to delay the recurring desire of looking at one's smartphone using self-control methods (Baumeister & Heatharton, 2004).
To resist the temptation of an alluring thing, delaying gratification and waiting for the useful one create a stressful state within the system.Self-control requires managing the stress caused by the delayed desire / gratification.In order to provide this, it is necessary to learn how to increase the self-control resources and how to use them properly.Smartphones; games, surfing the Internet, access to social media platforms, messages and various other applications promise a never-ending gratification environment.The reason why people with poor self-regulation skills control their smartphones so often is to reach these gratification objects.
Notions such as problematic Smartphone use, mobile phone games addictions, social media addictions could be associated with poor self-control skills (Blaumeister & Heatharton, 1996).Problematic smartphone use is one of the areas where one might find it difficult to retain self-control because the chance to stay away from mobile phones is low and people feel compelled to carry their mobile phones in their pockets all day long.Self-control is described as the ability to override or change one's inner responses, interrupt undesired behavioural tendencies and refrain from acting on them (Tangney et al., 2004).Problematic smartphone use is described with the occurrence of some unwanted behaviours.Self-control might be effective in reducing complained behaviours such as checking one's smartphone frequently, playing online games for extended periods of times, spending too much time in social media.People have the ability to control, that is self-control capacity over negative behaviours such as controlling the smartphone which has become automated and this ability needs to be discovered.People with self-control skills may regulate their behaviours to better manage their lives (Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996).

Self-control and Problematic Smartphone Use
Considering that poor self-control skills are a risk factor for addiction, it could be inferred that if the individual improves his/her self-control skills, it may prevent the problematic use of smartphone.Lee (2016) showed the negative relationship between smartphone addiction and self-control skills.According to Lee's study, the risk of smartphone addiction decreases as the self-control skills improved.
Studies investigating the relationship between self-control skills and problematic smartphone use have concluded that poor self-control predicts problematic smartphone use and internet addiction.In a study, it was found that lack of self-control was associated with problematic smartphone use (Van Deursen et al., 2015).In another study examining the relationship between problematic smartphone use and self-control skills, selfcontrol skills were found to be as important determinants of the smartphone overuse (Khang et al., 2013).In a study conducted with five hundred and fifty-three adolescents, the relationships between social media overuse and self-control skills were investigated (Savcı, Ercengiz & Aysan, 2017).The study indicated that impulsivity, one of the sub-dimensions of self-control, has a positive relationship with social media overuse and improved self-control skills have a negative relationship with social media overuse.Kim, LaRose and Peng (2009) proved that online gaming addiction, a similar concept, could be predicted by poor self-control skills.In a study conducted with university students in Turkey, poor self-control skills were correlated with Internet addiction, loneliness and depression (Özdemir, Kuzucu & Ak, 2014).The effect of loneliness and depression on the Internet addiction was realized through poor self-control skills.

Emotion Regulation
In the conceptual framework of Vohs and Baumeister (2011), the particular part of self-control related to emotions is called emotional self-control or simply emotion regulation.Difficulty in regulating emotions is that people are not aware of their emotions, cannot make sense of their emotions, cannot accept their emotions, and have difficulty in performing their target-oriented behaviours when they are faced with negative emotions (Gratz & Roemer, 2004).Emotion regulation is defined as an attempt to shift from an unwanted emotional state into a more desirable emotional state (Gross, 2002).
Self-control is defined as regulating behaviours according to purposes and standards (Baumeister & Vohs, 2003) or regulating behaviours, thoughts, emotions and impulses (Baumeister, Heatherton & Tice, 2006).Vohs and Baumeister (2011) considered emotion regulation and self-control as subheadings of self-control within the theoretical framework they formed.Self-control and emotion regulation are behaviours and characteristics that enable individuals to adjust themselves with the external conditions and social requirements.All these concepts refer to a controlled response instead of an automatic response.Therefore, in some studies, emotion regulation is deemed as a self-control method (Gross, 2007).For this reason, in this study, self-control techniques are suggested to reduce the behavioural components of problematic smartphone use and emotion regulation techniques are suggested to regulate the emotional part.

Emotion Regulation and Problematic Smartphone Use
While emotion-focused coping strategies play a functional role in order to reduce the impact of negative emotions, persons individuals who frequently use emotion-focused coping methods in problematic situations are less successful in the long run (Hess & Richards, 1999).One of the diagnostic criteria of problematic smartphone use is the fact that the use of the smartphone makes the person feel comfortable by preventing the person from thinking of the stressful situation.Using a smartphone to distract from a stressful situation is a kind of emotion-oriented coping method (Şakiroğlu & Akyol, 2018).
Difficulty in emotion regulation is closely associated with problematic smartphone use.Hoffner and Lee (2015) found out that people are turning to technological tools in order to suppress negative emotions.Hormes, Kearns and Timko (2014) showed that individuals with Facebook addiction experience emotion regulation difficulties such as rejection of emotional reactions, limited access to emotion regulation strategies and poor impulse control, and those with internet addiction had higher emotion regulation difficulties compared to the healthy individuals.When the studies conducted in Turkey are reviewed, it could be seen that Yildiz (2017) demonstrated that dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies explain and predict 38% of the variance of internet addiction and 19% of addiction to smartphones; Ercengiz and Şar (2017) showed that emotion regulation explained 34% of the variance of internet addiction in adolescents.The literature shows a positive relationship between problematic technology use and emotion regulation difficulties.
Keeping pet is considered as a more functional way of mood regulation compared to smartphone use in this study.It has been reported that having a pet contributes positively to the empathy skills and emotional development of children (Salgırlı et al., 2012).In the same study, it was reported that children with animals have more developed immune systems and better record of school attendance compared to their peers; it was also stated that keeping pets reduces stress, blood pressure, triglyceride and cholesterol levels.Although there is no study showing the relationship between pet keeping and problematic smartphone use in the literature, the study gains value in this sense.

Research Hypothesis
This study is conducted to demonstrate the relationships between self-control skills, emotion regulation difficulties, pet keeping and problematic smartphone use.The hypotheses of the research based on the predictions are as follows: 1. Self-control is expected to predict problematic smartphone use directly and negatively.2. Self-control and emotion regulation difficulty are expected to correlate negatively with each other.3. Emotion regulation difficulty is expected to predict problematic smartphone use directly and negatively.4. Pet keeping is expected to predict problematic smartphone use directly and negatively.

Research model
The research is a descriptive study using multi-factor experimental method and the data were collected through survey method.The research design was analysed by using stepwise regression analysis in order to measure the effects of demographic variables, pet keeping, self-control and emotion regulation difficulties on problematic smartphone use.This method requires the variables to be entered into the equation in two steps (demographics / self-control and emotion regulation) respectively (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

Sample
The research sample consists of 295 university students from Adnan Menderes University, of whom 222 are females and 73 are males.While 67 (22.70%) of the participants stated that they live with their families, 228 (77.30%) reported that they lived separate from their families.As sampling method, accessible and simple random sampling method was preferred.At the beginning of the various courses of the university, study data were collected with the participation of the instructor.

Data Collection Tools
Personal Information Form: "Personal Information Form" was prepared to collect information about the demographic characteristics of the participants such as age and gender.There is also a question inquiring whether the participant keeps a pet or not in the form.

Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS):
This scale was developed by Gratz and Roemer (2004) in order to determine the difficulties experienced by individuals in emotion regulation, and adapted into Turkish by Rugancı and Gençöz (2010).The scale consists of a total of 36 items.The items are marked on a five point likert scale, ranging from "almost never" to "almost always".The scale consists of six sub-factors.These are difficulty in accepting emotional response (acceptance), lack of emotional awareness (awareness), difficulty in moving to goal-oriented behaviour (goal), limited access to emotion regulation strategies (strategy), lack of understanding of emotional response (openness), and difficulty in controlling impulse (impulse) respectively.High scores obtained from each subscale or the whole scale indicate the existence of difficulty in emotion regulation.In the original form of the scale, Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was .93,testretest reliability was .88 and the total correlation of the scale items was over .30(Gratz & Roemer, 2004).The internal consistency coefficient of the Turkish form of the scale is .94and the internal consistency coefficient of the sub-dimensions change between .75 and .90.Test-retest reliability was determined as .83and two-half test reliability was determined as .95.The same sub-dimensions that were found in the original form of the scale were obtained (Rugancı & Gençöz, 2008).The items 1,2,6,7,8,10,17,20,22,24,34 are coded in reverse.In this study, Cronbach's alpha value was determined as .92for the whole scale.

Brief self-control scale (BSCS):
The scale was designed by Tangney et al. (2004) in order to determine situations involving self-control.The brief form of the scale consists of 13 items and it is a Likert type scale which is graded between 1 and 5.The scale was adapted into Turkish by Nebioğlu, Konuk, Akbaba and Eroğlu (2012).Some items of the original scale were removed while adapting the BSCS into Turkish and a 9-item form was obtained, 4 of which belongs to the self-discipline subscale and 5 of which belong to impulsivity subscale.High scores obtained from the scale indicate high self-control.The scale consists of two scales: self-discipline and impulsivity.The reliability of the Turkish version of the BSCS was found to be .83for the whole scale, .81 for self-discipline, and .87 for impulsivity (Nebioğlu et al., 2012).The internal consistency coefficient of the scale whose total score is used in this study was found to be .75.

Smartphone addiction scale:
This scale was developed by Kwon, Kim, Cho, and Yang (2013) in order to measure individuals' problematic smartphone use and consists of 33 items.The scale is a Likert-type scale that ranges between 1 and 6.The scale was adapted into Turkish by Demirci, Orhan, Demirdaş, Akpınar and Sert (2014) and it is possible to give a single total score.The lowest obtainable score is 33 and the highest obtainable score is 198 from the scale and high scores are interpreted as risky use.It was found that the Turkish version of the scale has 7 factors.The internal consistency coefficient of the scale was found to be .94(Demirci et al., 2014).In this study, the internal consistency coefficient of the scale was found to be .93.In the study, as the scores get higher, the problematic use of smartphone is considered to increase and evaluated accordingly.

Process
In order to control the sequence effect, (Personal Information Form was given at the beginning of each application) the scales were given to the participants in different sequences.It was observed that the duration of filling the scales ranged between 15-30 minutes.

Data Analysis
The data were tested for normality and linearity and extreme values were evaluated.As a result of the evaluations, it was decided that the data was distributed normally and the extreme values were excluded.SPSS 22.0 package program was used in order to perform statistical analysis in the study.In the study, frequency analysis was used for descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between variables.

Correlations Between the Scales
The main hypothesis of the research is based on the relationships between self-control, emotion regulation difficulties and problematic smartphone use.Self-control is expected to be negatively correlated with problematic smartphone use, and emotion difficulty is expected to be positively correlated.The correlation coefficients between the scales used in the study are presented in Table 1.  1.The relationship is statistically significant for all variables (p <.05, p <.01).There is a significant negative correlation between self-control and problematic smartphone use, with r = -.46 (p <.01).There is a significant positive correlation between emotion regulation difficulty and problematic smartphone use with r=.41 (p <.01).There is a significant negative correlation between self-control and emotion regulation difficulty with r= -.33 (p <.05).

Regression Analyses: Predictors of Problematic Smartphone Use
Stepwise regression analysis was used to determine some predictors of problematic smartphone use.In the first step of the analysis, the variables of school grade point average, gender, class and whether or not pets were kept are included in the equation using stepwise method and in the second step of the analyses, selfcontrol and emotion regulation difficulty factors were included in the equation using stepwise method.The dependent variable of the analysis is problematic smartphone use.In the first step of stepwise regression, independent variables that did not have a significant relationship on the dependent variable were not taken to the second step, and the only factor that passed from the first step to the second step was pet keeping.No significant relationships between gender, class, school grade point average and smartphone use were found.Table 2 displays the regression results of the second step.After both of the 2 blocks enter into the equation, R is significantly different from zero.At the end of the second stage, when self-control, emotion regulation difficulty and pet keeping all are entered into the equation, R = .30,F (6, 289) = 29.99,p <.01.
When the regression analysis results are examined, it is seen that 3 predictors together explain 26.70% of the variance of problematic smartphone use.Self-control (p <.00) and pet keeping (p <.00) predict problematic smartphone use significantly and negatively, and emotion regulation difficulty (p <.00) predicts problematic smartphone use significantly and positively.Evaluation of all the results supports all of the hypotheses of the study.

Discussion, Conclusion and Implications
Problematic smartphone use has become a serious problem with the rapid increase in smartphone use.When the schools are taken into consideration, the frequency of coming to the classroom with smartphone increases from primary school to university and in Turkish universities, 84.00% of the students keep their smartphone on during the class (Günal & Pekçetin, 2018).This situation, in a way, may affect the expected attainmets in students through school curricula with the hidden curriculum effect.This study tries to offer practical solutions for the students having such difficulties in learning environment and educators in order to be more efficient in schools.
This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of some variables on problematic smartphone use and to make recommendations to practitioners.According to the results of the study, it was found that emotion regulation difficulties increase the problematic use of smartphone and self-control skills and pet keeping decrease it in accordance with the hypotheses.
It could be thought that when staying away from the smartphone is set up as a rule in order to control the ongoing urge to control it, the prohibition will constantly occupy one's mind and might consume one's cognitive resources.Thinking about something constantly and "thinking that you should not think about that thing constantly" will produce similar results.Instead, developing certain behavioural habits in relation to staying away from the smartphone can be a more effective way to deal with the risk smartphone creates about distracting students' attentions at school.
According to the results obtained from the study, there is a negative relationship between self-control and problematic smartphone use amongst university students.This finding may mean that students who are able to control their behaviour, who are able to prevent themselves from impulsive behaviours and who are successful in self-control use their smart phones with lesser risk.
Self-control is nourished by a source.Consuming a lot of self-control in a particular area may lead to lack of self-control in other areas (Baumeister et al., 2007).For example, many students may have an unhealthy diet, exercise less, sleep less, and spare less time for social support during the preparation time for the exams, which is known to be consuming self-control resources, compared to the other period of times (Oaten & Cheng, 2005).The rapid depletion of self-control resources due to such problematic behaviour makes the examination process more stressful.On the other hand, putting emphasis on the goals, motivation, healthy nourishment, social support and patience may facilitate the charging of self-control battery (Barber, Munz, Bagsby & Powell, 2010).Therefore, exercises aimed at charging self-control skills may serve for the purpose of reducing problematic smartphone use.Examples for such exercises will be given in the recommendations section.
One of the important findings of the study indicates that problematic smartphone use increases as the difficulty in emotion regulation increases.Individuals with emotion regulation difficulties may experience impairments in their functioning and may develop behavioural addictions.Problematic smartphone use is considered as one type of these addictions.Individuals who experience problems in their social interactions and who have difficulty in regulating their emotions, frequently check their smartphones to regulate their mood.This situation causes individuals to lose their self-control about the use of the smart phone and to feel a constant desire to use smartphone.If these individuals are taught emotion regulation exercises in order to accept their emotions instead of suppressing them and turning to their smartphones, problematic smartphone use may decrease.Additionally, pet keeping might be considered as an effective way of emotion regulation and may decrease impulsive behaviours by increasing both the perceived support and appeasing the need to love and to be loved.Further and in-depth studies are needed to investigate the relationship between pet keeping and problematic smartphone use.
It may be beneficial to include technology-based risks and precaution packages in curriculum, such as rapidly developing technology.Students carry their smartphone with them all day long and benefit from them in every aspect of life; however, this situation also creates an environment for the problematic smartphone use.The results of this study indicate that the lack of self-control and emotion regulation difficulties increase the risk of problematic smartphone use among university students, and imply including self-control and emotion regulation-based exercises in curricula, which might be beneficial to cope with such problems.These exercises may improve emotion regulation and self-control skills on one hand and may have a protective effect against the problematic Smartphone use on the other hand.

Limitations
 The most prominent limitation of the study is that all three scales (PSPU-BSCS-EMD) used in the study are self-report scales and the measurement tools were applied in the classroom.Participants may have tended to present themselves differently than they are.
 In the sample of the study, the distributions of male and female samples were not similar.75.30% of the participants were female and 24.70% were male.It may be considered that the presence of more female participants in the study was a limitation. While 67 of the participants (22.70%) stated that they lived with their families, 228 of them (77.30%) reported that they lived separate from their families.It is deemed that the relatively equal distributions of the participants living with their families and the participants living separate from their families might yield better results.

Suggestions
The meaningful relationships between problematic smartphone use and self-control and emotion regulation difficulty suggest that related notions can be used to prevent this problem.Two sets of exercises for reducing the emotion regulations difficulties and increasing self-control skills are given below.Including such activities into the training programs might mean taking early precautions for a problem that will be more prominent in the future.

Example Self-control Exercises in Learning
Self-control exercise suggestions were developed based on the definitions of Baumeister and Vohs (2007).
1. How long do I use my smartphone?In order to determine the current amount of time for smartphone use which is the first stage of self-regulation, we note how long we have used our smartphone during the last week in detail.
2. How long do I aim to use my smartphone?As the second stage of self-regulation, we note how long we aim to use our smartphone in detail.The joint table of these two exercises are given in the Table 3. 3.Labelling: Individuals with poor self-regulation skills cannot resist the desire for using smartphone.Individuals with poor self-regulation skills are impulsive and look for easy and fast satisfaction and these tendencies play an important role in this situation.Being able to self-control at the moments of boredom or desire will theoretically reduce the likelihood of addictive behaviour to occur and continue (Grasman, Grasman & van der Maas, 2016).Little labels with stopper words on them could be prepared and stuck on the phone.These little notes may give the user some time before using the smartphone and during this time selfregulating skills will step in.For example;  I can spare more time for my friend / family by using my smartphone less. If I use my Smartphone too often, it will prevent me from doing my other works. If I don't stop now, I will not be able to sleep all night once again.

Example Emotion Regulation Exercises in Learning
These emotion regulation exercises were developed based on the definitions of Baumeister and Vohs (2007) and Atalay's conscious awareness exercises (2018).
1.Worst Scenario Technique: "What is the worst thing that might happen in this situation?"The emotion regulation problems are resulted from ignoring situations caused by certain life events, not being aware of that emotion or not sharing it with others.Therefore, recognizing the worst-case scenario of using smartphone less will allow the person to recognize the possible emotions in case of lessening the smartphone use and enable the person to take precautions against them.For this purpose, the following questions could be answered:  What kind of negative results may occur if we reduce the 5 hours we spend on the smartphone to 3 hours? What kind of "negative" emotions I may experience by reducing the amount of time I spend with Smartphone?  What can I do to avoid being harmed by this feeling? Did reducing Smartphone cause the consequences I feel frightened? 2. Exercise for Recognizing Emotional Traps: When we encounter situations or emotions that disturb us, our first internal reaction is to avoid or ignore them.The smartphone in our pocket and the applications they have make it easy to avoid such situations and emotions.However, the right thing to do in such cases, is not to avoid or ignore, but to accept and to find a solution.In this exercise, whenever an involuntary and unnecessary urge to reach out for smartphone is felt during the day, it is noticed and marked on a piece of paper and tried to be named with the name of a season at the end of the day.

Table 1 .
Summary of Correlations and Mean Standard Deviations of Participants' Scores of Problematic Smartphone Use (PSPU), Brief Self-Control (BSCS) and Emotion Regulation Difficulty (EMD) Scales.PSPU= Problematic Smartphone Use; BSCS= Brief Self-Control Scale; EMD=Emotion Regulation Difficulty Findings related to the correlation, mean and standard deviation values of the variables are presented in Table

Table 2 .
Regression Values of Variables Affecting Problematic Smartphone Use.

Table 3 .
Table for Monitoring and Standards.