Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Version
Also known as: SAS-SV
The Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV) is a 10-item self-report instrument that rapidly assesses smartphone dependency and addiction-like behaviors in adolescents and adults. Developed by Kwon and colleagues in 2013 as an abbreviated version of the original 33-item SAS, it measures core dimensions of addiction: daily-life disturbance, withdrawal, virtual-life orientation, and tolerance.
Key highlights
- Brevity: 10 items requiring only 2–3 minutes, facilitating deployment in time-constrained settings like schools and clinics.
- Device-focused: captures smartphone addiction broadly, including all apps and functions, not just social media or gaming.
- Sex-differentiated norms: provides gender-specific cutoffs based on epidemiological evidence; clinically relevant.
- Cross-culturally validated: translated into multiple languages with consistent psychometric properties across East Asian, European, and other populations.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
The SAS-SV is appropriate for rapid screening of adolescents and adults for problematic smartphone use in clinical, educational, occupational health, and research settings. Use it to identify individuals at addiction risk, stratify severity, track intervention progress, or assess prevalence in population samples. Particularly useful when time is limited (e.g., school-based screening or busy clinical settings). Most validated in adolescent populations (age 13–19); applicability to younger children (<12) is limited.
Strengths & limitations
- Brevity: 10 items requiring only 2–3 minutes, facilitating deployment in time-constrained settings like schools and clinics.
- Device-focused: captures smartphone addiction broadly, including all apps and functions, not just social media or gaming.
- Sex-differentiated norms: provides gender-specific cutoffs based on epidemiological evidence; clinically relevant.
- Cross-culturally validated: translated into multiple languages with consistent psychometric properties across East Asian, European, and other populations.
- Unidimensional scoring: treats all 10 items as a single construct; does not separately score daily-life disturbance, withdrawal, or virtual-life orientation.
- Absence of behavioral anchors: relies on self-report without objective use metrics (screen time, checking frequency); subject to impression management.
- Adolescent-centric development: while validated in adults, most development work centered on teenagers; applicability to adults 45+ less established.
- Smartphone heterogeneity: does not differentiate problematic use of communication vs. gaming vs. browsing; a user heavily dependent on a single app may be misclassified.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
I scored 34 (female). Does that mean I have smartphone addiction?
Your score exceeds the female cutoff (≥33), indicating moderate addiction risk. However, a single scale score is not diagnostic. Addiction requires evidence of losing control despite trying to reduce use, withdrawal symptoms, and functional impairment. Consult a mental health professional for full assessment.
How is smartphone addiction different from just using my phone a lot for work?
Key difference: control and distress. If you use your smartphone 8 hours daily for work but feel satisfied, maintain sleep/relationships, and can put it down when you choose, that is not addiction. Addiction involves inability to control use despite negative consequences.
Can I reduce my SAS-SV score with behavioral changes?
Yes. Behavioral interventions (mindfulness, scheduled phone-free times, replacing phone use with offline activities) and therapy (cognitive-behavioral therapy, family therapy) can reduce smartphone dependence. Improvements typically emerge within 8–12 weeks; track via repeated SAS-SV administration.
Are the male and female cutoffs really different?
Yes, based on epidemiological data: males and females show different patterns of smartphone use and dependency by age and context. The sex-differentiated cutoffs (31 vs. 33) improve classification accuracy; using a single cutoff introduces sex bias.
Sources
- 1.Kwon, M., Kim, D.-J., Cho, H., & Yang, S. (2013). The Smartphone Addiction Scale: Development and validation of a short version for adolescents. PLoS ONE, 8(12), e83558.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 3). Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Version. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/social-media-psychology/smartphone-addiction-scale-short