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Nomophobia is a proliferating global concern and given its escalating prevalence rate, it becomes crucial to understand its severity, cognitive and affective correlates among youth. The aim of the study was to examine gender differences in nomophobia and to explore its relationship with experiential avoidance, emotional dysregulation and sensation seeking among young adults. The sample comprised of 104 young adults in the age group 18 to 25 years. Nomophobia Questionnaire (Yildirim & Correia, 2015); was used to measure the severity of nomophobia/screen fixation. Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (Bond et al., 2011); Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004); and Sensation Seeking Scale (Zukerman et al., 1964) were used to assess the psychological correlates of nomophobia. The findings revealed that 20.19% of young adults were categorized in the 'severe nomophobia' level. Interestingly, there was no significant gender difference in the severity of nomophobia and sensation seeking. However, females scored higher on experiential avoidance and limited access to emotional regulation strategies while males had higher scores on the lack of emotional awareness. Nomophobia was significantly and positively related with experiential avoidance, deficits in engaging in goal-directed behaviour, nonacceptance of emotional responses, lack of impulse control, lack of emotional clarity and limited access to emotional regulation strategies. The recognition of these psychological correlates is imperative for formulating efficacious intervention strategies and develop healthy behavioural patterns among Indian youth.

Keywords: Nomophobia, experiential avoidance, emotional dysregulation and sensation seeking

The Internet has radically changed the way we relate with others and attain knowledge. Expeditious access to expansive information on varied topics provides opportunities for self-education, keep abreast of latest information and learning new skills (Szymkowiak et al., 2021). However, the addictive nature of technology encompassing smartphones, gaming, social media, are being evinced to be similar to traditional fixations such as illegitimate drugs or substance abuse (Christakis, 2019). These days, researchers appraise digital media to be a formidable "new drug" (Christakis, 2019; Dresp-Langley, & Hutt, 2022).

Nomophobia creates significant psychological distress due to the concern and fear associated with disconnection from communicating, readily available and individually tailored information through smartphones (Gutiérrez-Puertas et al., 2019; González-Cabrera et al., 2017). This condition accounts for extreme discomfort, anxiety or anguish precipitated by lack of smartphone contact (Bragazzi et al., 2014). This uninhibited...

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