Mindfulness mediates relations between anxiety with problematic smartphone use severity

Abstract

A growing body of literature has demonstrated relations between mood- and anxiety-related psychopathology with problematic smartphone use (PSU) symptom severity. However, there has been little empirical inquiry of potential mediators of these relationships. The current study examined trait mindfulness and smartphone use expectancies as mediators of the relation between depression/anxiety and PSU severity in 352 undergraduate students. Participants completed an online survey that measured depression, anxiety, smartphone use expectancies, and PSU severity. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that trait mindfulness was inversely associated, and smartphone use expectancies were positively associated, with PSU severity. Trait mindfulness significantly mediated relations between anxiety and PSU severity. Results provide implications for understanding PSU within the context of theoretical models of PSU’s development, and highlight the role of mindfulness as an emotion regulation strategy and potential treatment for PSU.

The association of motives with problematic smartphone use: A systematic review

“…A total of 41 articles met the inclusion criteria. One additional article was identified through examination of reference lists and two through other sources (Hallauer et al, 2022;Horwood & Anglim, 2019). The screening process is summarised in Figure 1.…”

“…Consistent with an excessive reassurance or compensatory pathway to PSU, 12 studies tested whether there were indirect effects for psychosocial factors linked to negative affectivity on PSU via motives. Six of those studies included depression and/or anxiety, with findings showing positive indirect effects on PSU via "mood regulation", "enhancement", and process motives (conceptualised broadly to overlap with "information seeking", "mood regulation", "pass-time", and "enhancement" motives; Casale et al, 2021;Cheng & Meng, 2021;Elhai, Gallinari, et al, 2020;Hallauer et al, 2022;. Notably, two studies found that anxiety, but not depression, had positive indirect effects on PSU via process, , "mood regulation", and "enhancement" motives (Hallauer et al, 2022).…”

“…Six of those studies included depression and/or anxiety, with findings showing positive indirect effects on PSU via "mood regulation", "enhancement", and process motives (conceptualised broadly to overlap with "information seeking", "mood regulation", "pass-time", and "enhancement" motives; Casale et al, 2021;Cheng & Meng, 2021;Elhai, Gallinari, et al, 2020;Hallauer et al, 2022;. Notably, two studies found that anxiety, but not depression, had positive indirect effects on PSU via process, , "mood regulation", and "enhancement" motives (Hallauer et al, 2022). This suggests that the association of depression with motives reflecting "mood regulation" and "enhancement" may be at least in part due to shared variance with anxiety.…”

“…Some studies in the PSU literature appear to conflate motives and expectancies-that is, some measured expectancies with items that better reflect motives (Casale et al, 2021;Hallauer et al, 2022) and others measured motives with items that better reflect expectancies (C. Chen et al, 2017;Y. Chen et al, 2021;Hallauer et al, 2022;. We treated motives and expectancies as separate constructs based on theoretical considerations.…”

Social Interaction Anxiety and Problematic Smartphone Use Among Rural-Urban Adolescents in China: A Moderated Moderated-Mediation Model

“…People choose to use mobile media to socialize to avoid the social anxiety present in real-world interactions, which is one of the reasons for the excessive use of social networks (Lee et al, 2014). In addition, people with social anxiety tend to participate in online games and social networks more frequently and have a stronger motivation to indulge in smartphone use (Hallauer et al, 2022).…”