Wallinheimo Anna-Stiina, Evans Simon L
School of Psychology, Sport, and Health Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 12;20(9):e0331961. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331961. eCollection 2025.
Evening-types are at higher risk of problematic smartphone use and addiction to social media, but little is known about the possible mediating factors. Given the rising prevalence and broad negative impacts of smartphone and social media addiction, these factors require identification. Young adults (N = 407) aged 18-25, with an average age of 19.8 years, completed a battery of validated measures online. We tested mental health (anxiety and depression symptoms), loneliness, and poorer sleep quality as potential mediators in the relationships between eveningness and problematic smartphone use and social media addiction. As expected, evening types had higher prevalence of problematic smartphone use and social media addiction. Eveningness was also associated with higher anxiety and depression symptoms, loneliness, and poorer sleep quality. Two separate parallel mediation analyses were then conducted, with these three factors entered simultaneously as mediators. For problematic smartphone use, a partial mediation occurred, with loneliness as the significant mediating variable. For social media addiction, both loneliness and anxiety were significant mediators, and a full mediation was found. These important findings point to loneliness and anxiety as crucial explanatory variables for problematic technology use in young adults, suggesting that young adult evening types resort to smartphone/social media use as a dysfunctional coping strategy for loneliness and anxiety. Given the prevalence of problematic smartphone use and social media addiction amongst young people worldwide, and their wide-ranging negative impacts, this has important implications for prevention and intervention strategies to enhance young adults' mental health, functioning, and well-being.
夜型人出现问题性智能手机使用及社交媒体成瘾的风险更高，但对于可能的中介因素却知之甚少。鉴于智能手机和社交媒体成瘾的患病率不断上升且具有广泛的负面影响，这些因素需要加以识别。18至25岁的青年（N = 407，平均年龄19.8岁）在线完成了一系列经过验证的测量。我们测试了心理健康（焦虑和抑郁症状）、孤独感以及较差的睡眠质量，将其作为夜型与问题性智能手机使用及社交媒体成瘾之间关系的潜在中介因素。正如预期的那样，夜型人出现问题性智能手机使用和社交媒体成瘾的患病率更高。夜型还与更高的焦虑和抑郁症状、孤独感以及较差的睡眠质量相关。然后进行了两项独立的平行中介分析，将这三个因素同时作为中介因素纳入分析。对于问题性智能手机使用，存在部分中介作用，孤独感是显著的中介变量。对于社交媒体成瘾，孤独感和焦虑都是显著的中介因素，且发现存在完全中介作用。这些重要发现表明，孤独感和焦虑是青年问题性技术使用的关键解释变量，这表明青年夜型人将智能手机/社交媒体使用作为应对孤独感和焦虑的功能失调的策略。鉴于全球年轻人中问题性智能手机使用和社交媒体成瘾的普遍存在及其广泛的负面影响，这对旨在增强青年心理健康、功能和幸福感的预防及干预策略具有重要意义。
