The Effect of Self-Control Skills Training with follow-up Through Virtual Group on reducing problematic mobile phone use

Background and Objectives:  Self-control has been conceptualized in a number of ways but generally refers to the active regulation of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Theoretical and empirical work indicates that the ability to effective self-control has important and wide-ranging implications such as enacting positive behaviors that are conducive to longer-term goal attainment and inhibiting negative behaviors that undermine longer-term goal attainment. The study aimed to determine the effectiveness of self-control skills training on reducing problematic mobile phone use among male students of Farhangian University. Methods:The method of the study was quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test design. The population of the study consisted of all female students of Farhangian University of Sistan and Baluchestan province. The sample consisted of 60 individuals (30 in experimental group and 30 in control group) who had problematic mobile phone use and volunteered to participate in the experiment. The data gathering instrument was Genaro et al. scale of Cell-Phone Over-Use Scale (COS). This scale has no components. It has 21 questions on a 6-point Likert scale (never to forever). The sum of the scores of 21 questions determines the overall score of problematic mobile phone use. To implement the experimental design, first the Cell-Phone Over-Use Scale was implemented and after identifying the students who used Cell-Phone Over-Use, they participated in self-control skills training workshops. Findings: The results of the study showed that training self-control strategies on the problematic mobile phone use has a negative and significant effect on male students of Farhangian University of Zahedan. Also, there is a significant difference between the pre-test and the post-test for problematic mobile phone use in the follow-up group via the virtual network and the non-follow-up group via virtual network. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the training of self-control strategies and follow-up through the virtual group for students at the University of Farhangian will help to reduce problematic mobile phone use and move towards the general use of mobile phone. The results also showed that pursuing self-control skills training through virtual networks makes the effects of these trainings affect the behavior of mobile phone use for a longer period of time. Due to the fact that Cell-Phone Over-Use can affect the educational and learning activities of university students, it is recommended to university officials, educational and research planners to teach self-control skills and follow this Consider consecutive instruction in short-term university curricula.One of the most important limitations of this study was the tendency of students to pretend at the initial diagnosis through a questionnaire that they do not Cell-Phone Over-Use. The results of this research are useful and practical for university research and educational experts, university professors and students and all university educational planners.    ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS  ©2020 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.  ====================================================================================