Smartphone Addiction, Social Support, and Cybercrime Victimization: A Discrete Survival and Growth Mixture Model

In recent decades, criminological theories have identified a set of vulnerabilities in potential victims that seek to explain their victimization. When it comes to explaining cybercrime victimization, however, the important role that addiction to the vulnerabilities associated with technological devices can play has tended to be overlooked. In this paper we empirically link smartphone addiction, social support, and cyberfraud victimization in a nationally representative sample of 716 smartphone users followed for three years. The results of discrete survival and growth mixture models suggest that the probability of cyberfraud victimization is lower among users with a decrease in smartphone addiction and an increase in social support over the three years. These results allow us to suggest new avenues in the study of cybercrime victimization, with special emphasis on the psychosocial consequences that the deregulated use of these technological devices may entail.