Abstract
BackgroundTo explore the relationship between college students’ alexithymia and mobile phone addiction as well as the mediating effects of mental health and the moderating role of being a single child or not.MethodsA total of 1034 college students from Changchun were assessed with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and Mobile Phone Addiction Index (MPAI).ResultsAlexithymia was positively correlated with mental health and mobile phone addiction. Alexithymia had not only a direct impact on mobile phone addiction but also an indirect impact via mental health. For college students who were not only children, higher levels of alexithymia led to an increase in mobile phone addiction, whereas the influence of alexithymia on mobile phone addiction was much weaker among only children.ConclusionMental health has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between alexithymia and mobile phone addiction, and the relationship was significantly moderated by whether students were only children or not.
Highlights
To explore the relationship between college students’ alexithymia and mobile phone addiction as well as the mediating effects of mental health and the moderating role of being a single child or not
Research on the absolute and relative stability of alexithymia has shown that alexithymia is a personality trait instead of a state-dependent phenomenon that is secondary to other clinical problems [4]
Based on the literature review, we propose the following two hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Mental health will mediate the association between alexithymia and mobile phone addiction
Summary
To explore the relationship between college students’ alexithymia and mobile phone addiction as well as the mediating effects of mental health and the moderating role of being a single child or not. Methods: A total of 1034 college students from Changchun were assessed with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and Mobile Phone Addiction Index (MPAI). Results: Alexithymia was positively correlated with mental health and mobile phone addiction. Alexithymia had a direct impact on mobile phone addiction and an indirect impact via mental health. Conclusion: Mental health has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between alexithymia and mobile phone addiction, and the relationship was significantly moderated by whether students were only children or not. There are three factors for this scale: (1) difficulty in identifying feelings (DIF), (2) difficulty in describing feelings (DDF), and (3) externally oriented
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