Electronic Device Use: A Review of the Literature on Addictive Behaviors [Traffic Tech]

NHTSA · 2023 · ROSA P / United States. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) addresses the prevalence and nature of electronic device use while driving, specifically investigating whether such behavior constitutes an addiction. The study was motivated by the high rates of driver distraction—estimated at 10 percent for cellphones and 14 percent for non-technological sources—and the fact that device use increases crash risk by up to 30 times. Despite widespread awareness of these dangers, many drivers continue to engage in excessive and dependent device use, prompting an inquiry into the psychological mechanisms behind this persistence and the efficacy of potential countermeasures. To answer these questions, researchers conducted a comprehensive literature review, synthesizing data from academic, government, and private-sector sources across disciplines including human factors, psychology, and traffic safety. The team reviewed more than 270 sources in detail, with 155 undergoing critical analysis using a structured template. This multi-disciplinary approach aimed to create a current compendium of evidence to support future research, safety programs, and policy decisions regarding problematic device use. The findings indicate that while device use is prevalent, it does not meet the formal clinical definition of addiction as outlined in the DSM-5, as users do not consistently demonstrate diminished recognition of problems, inability to abstain, or impaired behavioral control. Instead, the report recommends the term “problematic device use.” Typical drivers are influenced by social acceptability and device design, with young drivers, women, and those with higher education showing higher distraction rates. However, a smaller group of problematic users exhibits compulsive behavior linked to specific risk factors: younger age, female gender, lower education, and personality traits such as extraversion, impulsivity, anxiety, and low self-esteem. These users often follow an “extraversion pathway,” overvaluing social rewards, or seek reassurance due to low self-esteem. Additionally, “addictive design” features in applications, such as endless scrolling and social comparison tools, exacerbate dependency by mimicking addictive brain chemistry changes. The significance of this work lies in its clarification that while device dependency shares similarities with addiction, it is distinct in clinical terms. The report identifies three categories of countermeasures to reduce problematic use: information-enhancing strategies (providing usage data), behavior-reinforcing strategies (imposing restrictions like automatic lockouts), and capacity-building strategies (encouraging alternative activities and self-regulation skills). The authors conclude that effective intervention requires a multi-faceted approach, combining traffic safety programs with broader strategies to reduce daily device dependency and mitigate the impact of attention-grabbing application designs.

Key finding

Electronic device use while driving does not qualify as a formal addiction but represents a problematic behavior driven by demographic factors and addictive design features that requires multi-faceted countermeasures.

Methodology

review

Sample size: 155

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• mobile phones
• temporal
• distraction laws
• telematics ubi feedback

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence