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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 …