Qiu Rui, Li Yushan, Gong Yue, Guo Zhihua, Cheng Sizhe, Li Mengze, Zhu Xia
Department of Military Medical Psychology, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2025 Jun 27;16:1592132. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1592132. eCollection 2025.
In China, platforms such as WeChat serve as integral hubs for communication, education, and daily life, rendering social media addiction a pressing concern among university students. Their profound digital immersion, combined with academic pressures, creates a unique contextual milieu where the cognitive ramifications of addiction, including negative attentional bias may be exacerbated. This study therefore aims to investigate the mediating role of anxiety and the moderating role of impulsivity in the relationship between social media addiction and negative attentional bias.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1,006 Chinese university students (81.1% male; the mean age of participants was 21.45 ± 2.013 years). Participants completed measures of social media addiction, anxiety, negative attentional bias, and impulsivity. Data were analyzed using SPSS and PROCESS macros for mediation and moderation effects with bootstrapping.
Social media addiction directly predicted negative attentional bias ( = 0.270, < 0.001) and indirectly through anxiety (indirect effect = 0.111, 95% CI [0.073, 0.153]). Impulsivity moderated both the direct effect ( = -0.020, < 0.001) and the anxiety-mediated pathway ( = -0.026, < 0.001). Specifically, anxiety strongly predicted negative attentional bias at low impulsivity ( = 0.893, < 0.001) but not at high impulsivity ( = 0.023, = 0.730).
his study reveals a moderated mediation model where anxiety mediates the effect of social media addiction on negative attentional bias, and impulsivity buffers this relationship. These findings highlight the importance of addressing anxiety and impulsivity in interventions for social media addiction-related cognitive biases.
在中国，微信等平台是沟通、教育和日常生活的重要枢纽，使得社交媒体成瘾成为大学生中一个紧迫的问题。他们深度沉浸于数字世界，再加上学业压力，营造了一种独特的情境氛围，在这种氛围中，成瘾的认知影响，包括负面注意偏向可能会加剧。因此，本研究旨在探讨焦虑在社交媒体成瘾与负面注意偏向之间的中介作用以及冲动性在其中的调节作用。
对1006名中国大学生进行了横断面调查（81.1%为男性；参与者的平均年龄为21.45±2.013岁）。参与者完成了社交媒体成瘾、焦虑、负面注意偏向和冲动性的测量。使用SPSS和PROCESS宏程序对数据进行分析，以进行中介和调节效应的自抽样检验。
社交媒体成瘾直接预测负面注意偏向（β = 0.270，p < 0.001），并通过焦虑间接预测（间接效应 = 0.111，95% CI [0.073, 0.153]）。冲动性调节了直接效应（β = -0.020，p < 0.001）和焦虑介导的路径（β = -0.026，p < 0.001）。具体而言，在低冲动性水平下，焦虑强烈预测负面注意偏向（β = 0.893，p < 0.001），但在高冲动性水平下则不然（β = 0.023，p = 0.730）。
本研究揭示了一个有调节的中介模型，其中焦虑介导了社交媒体成瘾对负面注意偏向的影响，而冲动性缓冲了这种关系。这些发现凸显了在针对与社交媒体成瘾相关的认知偏差的干预措施中解决焦虑和冲动性问题的重要性。
