ArticleJournal of behavioral addictions2021
A test of the pathway model of problematic smartphone use.
Article in Journal of behavioral addictions, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Involution perception and problematic smartphone use among Chinese college students: the indirect role of anxiety and the pathway-specific moderating role of psychological resilience.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Social media burnout and social anxiety as antecedents of discontinuous usage in the stressor-strain-outcome framework.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Construction and validation of the motives for smartphone use questionnaire.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Article
- The role of impulsivity and emotional dysregulation in smartphone overdependence explored through network analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Network analysis of the association between social anxiety and problematic smartphone use in college students.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- The Social Processes of Excessive Online Gaming Homophily: Peer Selection or Influence?Journal of youth and adolescence · 2024Article
- Examining the unique relationships between problematic use of the internet and impulsive and compulsive tendencies: network approach.BJPsych open · 2024Article
- The impact of long-term online learning on social anxiety and problematic smartphone use symptoms among secondary school students with different levels of fear of missing out: Evidence from a symptom network and longitudinal panel network analysis.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2024Article
- Order of first-play in simulated versus monetary gambling.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2023Article
- The unique role of smartphone addiction and related factors among university students: a model based on cross-sectional and cross-lagged network analyses.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Problematic smartphone use and specific problematic Internet uses among university students and associated predictive factors: a systematic review.Education and information technologies · 2023Article
- Hedonic use, stress, and life satisfaction as predictors of smartphone addiction.Addictive behaviors reports · 2022Article
- Problematic Smartphone Use and Problematic Social Media Use: The Predictive Role of Self-Construal and the Mediating Effect of Fear Missing Out.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Anxiety sensitivity mediates relations between anxiety (but not depression) and problematic smartphone use severity, adjusting for age and sex, in Chinese adolescents early in the COVID-19 pandemic.Human behavior and emerging technologies · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsProblematic smartphone use (PSU) has been described as a growing public health issue. In the current study, we aimed to provide a unique and comprehensive test of the pathway model of PSU. This model posits three distinct developmental pathways leading to PSU: (1) the excessive reassurance pathway, (2) the impulsive pathway and (3) the extraversion pathway.
methodsUndergraduate students (n = 795, 69.8% female, mean age = 23.80 years, sd = 3.02) completed online self-report measures of PSU (addictive use, antisocial use and dangerous use) and the psychological features (personality traits and psychopathological symptoms) underlying the three pathways.
resultsBayesian analyses revealed that addictive use is mainly driven by the excessive reassurance pathway and the impulsive pathway, for which candidate etiopathological factors include heightened negative urgency, a hyperactive behavioural inhibition system and symptoms of social anxiety. Dangerous and antisocial use are mainly driven by the impulsive pathway and the extraversion pathway, for which candidate etiopathological factors include specific impulsivity components (lack of premeditation and sensation seeking) and primary psychopathy (inclination to lie, lack of remorse, callousness and manipulativeness). DISCUSSION AND
conclusionsThe present study constitutes the first comprehensive test of the pathway model of PSU. We provide robust and original results regarding the psychological dimensions associated with each of the postulated pathways of PSU, which should be taken into account when considering regulation of smartphone use or tailoring prevention protocols to reduce problematic usage patterns.
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