GEOGRAFIA Online TM Malaysian Journal of Society and Space 8 issue 3 (104-117) © 2022, e-ISSN 2682-7727 https://doi.org/10.17576/geo-2022-1803-07 104 The mediating role of perceived stress between smartphone dependency and psychological well-being among college students Noradilah Md Nordin 1 , Peter Martin 2 1 Centre for Human Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Pahang 2 Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University, Ames Correspondence: Noradilah Md Nordin (email: noradilah@ump.edu.my) Received: 3 September 2021; Accepted: 4 August 2022; Published: 31 August 2022 Abstract Psychological well-being is one of the main elements in students’ life, especially for successful adaptation to the college environment. Determining what factors influence students’ psychological-well may provide valuable insights and ideas for the development of intervention programs. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the association between life events, smartphone dependency, perceived stress, and psychological well-being and whether perceived stress mediates the association between smartphone dependency and psychological well-being. Pearson correlations and multiple regression analyses with bootstrapped mediation were used to analyze the data in this study. The results show that life events were positively associated with perceived stress and that smartphone dependency was associated with higher perceived stress levels. Then, perceived stress was found negatively correlated with psychological well-being. However, smartphone dependency was not associated with psychological well-being. The bootstrapped analysis indicated that perceived stress fully mediated the association between smartphone dependency and psychological well-being. In summary, this study is significant for practitioners in well-being fields, such as counselors and educators, to promote students’ well-being in higher education. Keywords: Life events, perceived stress, psychological well-being, smartphone dependency. Introduction Unhealthy psychological well-being can affect students' development, including poor academic performance, lack of motivation, social problems, etc. According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey, the prevalence of psychological problems among Malaysian adults increased from 10.7% in 1996 to 29.5% in 2015 (Institute for Public Health, 2015). Also, the Malaysian Health Ministry revealed that one in five students reported psychological problems in 2016 compared to one in ten students in 2011 (“Mental Health of Malaysian Students Cause of Worry: Health Ministry,” 2016). A recent study found that stress is a significant predictor of students’