The Effect of Boredom Proneness on Smartphone Addiction and Impulse Purchasing: A Field Study with Young Consumers in Turkey

Abstract

The study seeks to understand the effects of boredom proneness on impulse purchasing and smartphone addiction of young consumers. Moreover, the possible mediating role of smartphone addiction is tested for the effect of boredom proneness on impulse purchasing. Nowadays, the effect of emotions on human behavior is generally accepted, and boredom is one of the important and common problematic feelings or moods at various levels of life due to factors like unemployment, not being able to work in a suitable job, not getting appropriate education matching individual abilities, monotony of tasks, and feeling life is meaningless. Investigating the effect of boredom on specific consumer behavior would increase our knowledge about consumer behavior. For the research, a survey was conducted 313 students from Kirikkale University, Keskin Vocational High School; the data were collected by convenience sampling method. The data were processed through statistical tools like exploratory factor analysis, coefficient alphas, and regression analysis. The results of the study reveal that boredom proneness affects impulse purchasing and smartphone addiction. In addition, it is understood that smartphone addiction plays a mediating role in the effect of boredom proneness on impulse purchasing. These results indicate that boredom can be an important factor affecting certain negative consumer behaviors.