Academic Burnout and Problematic Smartphone Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Effects of Anxiety and Resilience.

Academic burnout has been associated with problematic smartphone use. However, the mechanism underlying this relation has been inadequately explored during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 748 Chinese undergraduate students were recruited in the study who were measured with their levels of academic burnout, anxiety, resilience, and problematic smartphone use. Our study showed that academic burnout significantly predicted problematic smartphone use both directly and indirectly via anxiety. By constructing a moderated mediation model, our study found that resilience moderated the direct impact and the second half of the indirect path (between anxiety and problematic smartphone use); however, with the moderation effects of resilience, both the indirect impact of academic burnout on problematic smartphone use anxiety became insignificant. Our findings brought additional evidence on the association between academic burnout and problematic smartphone use and significantly suggested the potential solution to alleviate the influences.