Individuals with psychosocial problems such as social phobia or feelings of loneliness might be vulnerable to excessive use of cyber-technological devices, such as smartphones. We aimed to determine the relationship of smartphone addiction with social phobia and loneliness in a sample of university students in Istanbul, Turkey. Three hundred and sixty-seven students who owned smartphones were given the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS), UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA-LS), and Brief Social Phobia Scale (BSPS). A significant difference was found in the mean SAS scores (p < .001) between users who declared that their main purpose for smartphone use was to access social networking sites. The BSPS scores showed positive correlations with all six subscales and with the total SAS scores. The total UCLA-LS scores were positively correlated with daily life disturbance, positive anticipation, cyber-oriented relationship, and total scores on the SAS. In regression analyses, total BSPS scores were significant predictors for SAS total scores (β = 0.313, t = 5.992, p < .001). In addition, BSPS scores were significant predictors for all six SAS subscales, whereas UCLA-LS scores were significant predictors for only cyber-oriented relationship subscale scores on the SAS (β = 0.130, t = 2.416, p < .05). The results of this study indicate that social phobia was associated with the risk for smartphone addiction in young people. Younger individuals who primarily use their smartphones to access social networking sites also have an excessive pattern of smartphone use.

Meditation involves attentional regulation and may lead to increased activity in brain regions associated with attention such as dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined whether DLPFC and ACC were activated during meditation. Subjects who meditate were recruited and scanned on a 3.0 Tesla scanner. Subjects meditated for four sessions of 12 min and performed four sessions of a 6 min control task. Individual and group t‐maps were generated of overall meditation response versus control response and late meditation response versus early meditation response for each subject and time courses were plotted. For the overall group (n = 13), and using an overall brain analysis, there were no statistically significant regional activations of interest using conservative thresholds. A region of interest analysis of the entire group time courses of DLPFC and ACC were statistically more active throughout meditation in comparison to the control task. Moreover, dividing the cohort into short (n = 8) and long‐term (n = 5) practitioners (>10 years) revealed that the time courses of long‐term practitioners had significantly more consistent and sustained activation in the DLPFC and the ACC during meditation versus control in comparison to short‐term practitioners. The regional brain activations in the more practised subjects may correlate with better sustained attention and attentional error monitoring. In summary, brain regions associated with attention vary over the time of a meditation session and may differ between long‐ and short‐term meditation practitioners.