A plethora of research explores “problematic use” of technologies, but conceptualising what “problematic” refers to and how it is operationalized remains an ongoing issue. There is a lack of consistency in how cut-offs are used to distinguish “problematic” users and how this is then handled in subsequent analyses. We compared various scoring strategies common to “problematic” use research and how this impacted prevalence rates and impacts on psychosocial and behavioural variables amongst high school students. Adolescents (N = 446) completed measures of “problematic” use of smartphones, online gaming and social media, as well as self-esteem and problematic school behaviour. For each “problematic” technology use questionnaire, we divided the sample into high and low “problematic” technology use groups, using both a polythetic and a monothetic scoring method. Prevalence rates varied substantially based on the scoring method used, despite these techniques being rather interchangeable in the literature. Furthermore, logistic regressions indicated that overall, polythetic rather than monothetic methods elicited more observable differences between high and low “problematic” user groups. This suggests that consistency and consensus on scoring methods is paramount to ensure that researchers are adhering to standardised parameters.

大量研究探索了技术的“有问题的使用”，但将“有问题的”指的是什么以及它如何运作的概念化仍然是一个持续存在的问题。在如何使用截断值来区分“有问题”的用户以及如何在随后的分析中进行处理方面缺乏一致性。我们比较了“有问题”使用研究常见的各种评分策略，以及这如何影响高中生的流行率和心理社会和行为变量。青少年（N = 446) 完成了对智能手机、在线游戏和社交媒体的“有问题”使用以及自尊和有问题的学校行为的测量。对于每个“有问题”的技术使用问卷，我们将样本分为高和低“有问题”的技术使用组，同时使用综合评分和单一评分方法。尽管这些技术在文献中相当可互换，但根据所使用的评分方法，患病率差异很大。此外，逻辑回归表明，总体而言，综合方法而不是单一方法在高“问题”用户群和低“问题”用户群之间引起了更明显的差异。这表明评分方法的一致性和共识对于确保研究人员遵守标准化参数至关重要。