The effect of smartphone addiction on university students' critical and creative thinking dispositions

The individual, who has become ubiquitous with digitalisation, is drifting towards a life dependent on digital tools. Especially smartphones have become one of the most dominant tools in this addiction process. Smartphone addiction has both psychological and physiological negative effects on the individual. From this point of view, the main purpose of the study is to examine the effect of smartphone addiction levels of university students on their critical thinking and creative thinking tendencies, which are among the higher order thinking skills. Correlation research, which is one of the quantitative research designs, was used in the study. In the data collection process of the research, "Marmara critical thinking tendencies" (2018), "Marmara creative thinking tendencies" (2017) scales developed by Özgenel and Çetin and the smartphone addiction scale adapted to Turkish by Demirci et al. The study was completed with the participation of 391 students studying in different departments at Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University in 2024. IBM SPSS package programme was used to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics, t-test NOVA, correlation and regression methods were used in the analysis process. The study revealed a statistically significant negative correlation between smartphone addiction and critical and creative thinking dispositions. Furthermore, a statistically significant and positive relationship was identified between critical thinking dispositions and creative thinking dispositions.