Childhood Maltreatment and Mobile Phone Addiction Among Chinese Adolescents: Loneliness as a Mediator and Self-Control as a Moderator.

Shutao Ma,Yuhuai Huang,Yankun Ma

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00813

Abstract

Previous studies have found that childhood maltreatment is an important risk predictor of adolescent mobile phone addiction (MPA). However, little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this association. Grounded in the Basic Psychological Needs Theory and the organism-environment interaction model, this study examined the mediating effect of loneliness and the moderating effect of self-control in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and adolescent MPA. A total of 981 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 13.68 years, SD = 0.92) completed measures regarding childhood maltreatment, MPA, loneliness, and self-control. After controlling for participants’ demographic variables, loneliness partially mediated the relation between childhood maltreatment and adolescent MPA and this indirect path was moderated by self-control. Specifically, the effect of loneliness on MPA was stronger for adolescents with lower self-control than for those with higher self-control. Our research provides additional evidence for the negative association between childhood maltreatment and MPA.

Highlights

By June 2019, the number of Internet users in China had reached 854 million, among which the proportion of mobile phone users was 99.1%, with teenagers accounting for 16.9% of the total mobile phone subscribers (China Internet Network Information Center, 2019)
This study aimed to investigate two questions: (a) whether loneliness mediated the relation between childhood maltreatment and adolescent Mobile phone addiction (MPA), and (b) whether this indirect path was moderated by self-control
These results demonstrated that the relationship between childhood maltreatment and adolescent MPA was partially mediated by loneliness

Summary

Introduction

By June 2019, the number of Internet users in China had reached 854 million, among which the proportion of mobile phone users was 99.1%, with teenagers accounting for 16.9% of the total mobile phone subscribers (China Internet Network Information Center, 2019). Mobile phone addiction (MPA) refers to a strong desire to engage in mobile phone use, leading to obvious physical and/or psychological maladjustment in individuals (Liu et al, 2018) Both Internet addiction and MPA are addictive behaviors related to excessive use and dependence on a specific medium (Chiu et al, 2013). Given the fact that mobile phones are portable and use smart technology, mobile addicts are addicted to mobile games, and to social network services. This enables individuals to experience more pleasure and immersion from mobile phones (Jeong et al, 2016).

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