Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Telematics and Informatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tele Compulsive smartphone usage and users' ill-being among young Indians: Does personality matter? Abinash Panda a , Nikunj Kumar Jain b, ⁎ a Organizational Behaviour Area, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India b Operations and Quantitative Methods Area, International Management Institute, New Delhi, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Personality theory Five factor model personality emotional ill- being Physical ill-being India Compulsive smartphone usage ABSTRACT Personality characteristics are found to have significant influence on the extent of smartphone usage among the Indian youth. Compulsive usage of smartphones, however, affects the users’ emotional and physical health. The objective of this study is to examine how personality char- acteristics are related to compulsive smartphone usage and if compulsive smartphone usage impacts users’ ill being. Personality characteristics such as extraversion and conscientiousness are found to be leading to the compulsive smartphone usage, whereas neuroticism, openness to new experience, and agreeableness are found to be negatively influencing compulsive smartphone usage. Extraversion is found to have maximum influence on an individual’s compulsive tendency to use smartphone, followed by conscientiousness. The findings of this study also made the au- thors believe that compulsive smartphone usage, affects both emotional (affecting inter-personal and family relationships) and physical (lack of quality sleep and physical discomfort) health of the smartphone users. Emotional health, however, is found to be more affected by compulsive smartphone usage compared to physical health. Given these findings, it is desirable that youths in Indian should be appropriately guided to use smartphones judiciously so that they do not end up being the victims of compulsive usage and subsequently addiction. 1. Introduction The smartphone is a device that is mobile with multiple utilities. It allows an individual to use it as a telephone, a computer with the Internet facility and significant computing capacity (Tossell et al., 2012). Hence, everyone desires to have a smartphone, irre- spective of social stature and professional affiliations (Lin et al., 2015). Smartphones, compared to conventional mobile phones, offer more varied options of engagement because of internet connectivity, computing capabilities, and entertainment features, which act as inducements for individuals to get addicted to a smartphone. Individuals tend to use smartphones more frequently or excessively (Oulasvirta et al., 2012), even while engaged in other worthwhile activities such as studying, attending classes or meetings. Such behavioural patterns frequently contribute to one’s stress and anxiety. Such anxiety and stress may not allow them to rest their mind and relax (Collins and Koechlin, 2012). All these seem to contribute to negative effects on the physical and emotional well-being of users. Smartphone has gained significant popularity in recent times (Chen et al., 2017). Ericsson (2016) has pegged global smartphone subscription at 2.6 billion. The growth in smartphone usage has plateaued in advanced economies, such as the United States (U.S.) and Europe. The report has also indicated that by 2020, the number of smartphone users would be 6.1 billion globally, which https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2018.03.006 Received 20 December 2017; Received in revised form 22 January 2018; Accepted 6 March 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: abinash.panda@mdi.ac.in (A. Panda), nikunj.jain@imi.edu (N.K. Jain). Telematics and Informatics xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 0736-5853/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Please cite this article as: Panda, A., Telematics and Informatics (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2018.03.006