Abstract
The present study mainly examined how depression, anxiety, inhibitory control, and trial-to-trial intraindividual reaction time variability (IIRTV), which served as an index of attentional control, interactively contributed to college students’ problematic smartphone use. A sample of 307 Chinese college students (Mage = 19.22 years, SD = 0.79) anonymously responded to questionnaires and performed a flanker task to assess inhibitory control and IIRTV. The results showed that problematic smartphone use was positively associated with depression and anxiety, while negatively associated with inhibitory control. More importantly, the results showed that the relationship between depression/anxiety and problematic smartphone use moderated by IIRTV. Specifically, less depression or less anxiety combined with lower IIRTV to link to less problematic smartphone use. More depression or more anxiety was associated with more problematic smartphone use, regardless of the level of IIRTV. The finding suggested that problematic smartphone use might be influenced by the complex interplay between emotion and attentional function.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Funding
This research was supported by Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (22XJC190002), and Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China (2022JQ-193).
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Peng, Y., Xing, W. & Wang, Y. Depression, anxiety and problematic smartphone use: the moderating roles of inhibitory control and trial-to-trial intraindividual reaction time variability. Curr Psychol 43, 11157–11169 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05238-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05238-0