Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32903205›Full record

SynthesisJournal of behavioral addictions2020

Correlations between mobile phone addiction and anxiety, depression, impulsivity, and poor sleep quality among college students: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Ying Li, Guangxiao Li, Li Liu, Hui Wu

Registry-linked trialOpen access · goldAbstract readMeta-AnalysisSystematic Review
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Synthesis in Journal of behavioral addictions, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07410104 (Impact of Non-Invasive Neuromodulation on Social Media Addiction), which is not on this map. Cited by 173 papers, 12 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
173citing papers in PubMed, 12 pooled it
33.8field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT07410104 narecruitingnot on this mapstarted 2026, after this paper: background citation

Impact of Non-Invasive Neuromodulation on Social Media Addiction

TypeinterventionalSponsorEgas Moniz - Cooperativa de Ensino Superior, CRLRan2026 to 2026Enrolled60ConditionsSocial Media Addiction, Craving to Use Social Media, Craving, Internet AddictionArmsTranscranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), Sham Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (Sham tDCS)
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

173 citing papers in PubMed, 12 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 279 citations in OpenAlex.

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113 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Ying Li1Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China.ORCID 0000-002-6599-8268
Guangxiao Li2Department of Medical Record Management Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China.ORCID 0000-0003-0318-3490
Li Liu1Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China.ORCID 0000-0003-1084-6379
Hui Wu1Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China.ORCID 0000-0002-4157-8023
China Medical University · CN

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND

aimsMobile phone addiction (MPA) is frequently reported to be correlated with anxiety, depression, stress, impulsivity, and sleep quality among college students. However, to date, there is no consensus on the extent to which those factors are correlated with MPA among college students. We thus performed a meta-analysis to quantitatively synthesize the previous findings.

methodsA systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted by searching PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Wanfang, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), and Chinese Biological Medicine (CBM) databases from inception to August 1, 2020. Pooled Pearson's correlation coefficients between MPA and anxiety, depression, impulsivity, and sleep quality were calculated by R software using random effects model.

resultsForty studies involving a total of 33, 650 college students were identified. Weak-to-moderate positive correlations were found between MPA and anxiety, depression, impulsivity and sleep quality (anxiety: summary r = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.34-0.45, P < 0.001, I2 = 84.9%; depression: summary r = 0.36, 95% CI = 0.32-0.40, P < 0.001, I2 = 84.2%; impulsivity: summary r = 0.38, 95% CI = 0.28-0.47, P < 0.001, I2 = 94.7%; sleep quality: summary r = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.22-0.33, P < 0.001, I2 = 85.6%). The pooled correlations revealed some discrepancies when stratified by some moderators. The robustness of our findings was further confirmed by sensitivity analyses.

conclusionsThe current meta-analysis provided solid evidence that MPA was positively correlated with anxiety, depression, impulsivity, and sleep quality. This indicated that college students with MPA were more likely to develop high levels of anxiety, depression, and impulsivity and suffer from poor sleep quality. More studies, especially large prospective studies, are warranted to verify our findings.

Indexed as

Impulsive BehaviorAdultAnxietyComorbidityDepressionHumansInternet Addiction DisorderSleep Wake DisordersStudentsUniversitiesYoung Adultanxietycollege studentsdepressionimpulsivitymeta-analysisMobile phone addictionsleep quality

Identifiers

PMID32903205
PMCPMC8943681
OpenAlexW3085046775

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.