Trial reportPloS one2022
Effectiveness of brief mindfulness intervention for college students' problematic smartphone use: The mediating role of self-control.
Trial report in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Impact of meditation-only interventions on university students' resilience: A pairwise and network meta-analysis of randomised actively and passively controlled trials.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2026Pooled it
- The relationship between academic burnout and problematic smartphone use: a three-level meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy of neurofeedback-assisted mindfulness for anxiety and nomophobia in Spanish young adults: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2025Trial
- Network Structure of Nomophobia, Fear of Missing Out, Mindful Attention, and Happiness Among University Students.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Smartphone addiction, nomophobia, and neck-related functional disability among undergraduate students in a Nigerian University: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Mindfulness exercise and quality of life among nursing students: the mediating roles of self-control and internet addiction.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- An Object Hiding Behind the Screen: The Relationship Between Body Surveillance and Internet Addiction Among Chinese Women.Archives of sexual behavior · 2026Article
- The relationship among short-form video addiction, self-control, and emotional symptoms in college students: a network analysis.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Mindfulness exercise and mental health among university students: the sequential mediating roles of sleep regularity and self-control.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Linking mindfulness to phubbing among college students: a longitudinal mediation analysis of attentional control and dual-system self-control.Australian journal of psychology · 2026Article
- Attentional bias towards smartphone stimuli is associated with decreased interoceptive awareness and increased physiological reactivity.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- A Multi- Mediation Analysis on the Impact of Social Media and Internet Addiction on University and High School Students' Mental Health Through Social Capital and Mindfulness.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Effectiveness of brief online mindfulness-based intervention on different types of mobile phone addiction: mechanisms of influence of trait mindfulness.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom from Internet Addiction in Adolescents: A Narrative Review.Cureus · 2024Review
- Left-behind experience and mobile phone addiction among college students: A moderated mediation of social anxiety and sex.Heliyon · 2024Article
- The mediating effect of attentional impulsivity between mindfulness and problematic smartphone use.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Study protocol of a proposed Neurofeedback-Assisted Mindfulness Training Program on symptoms of anxiety and psychological distress associated with smartphone use in young adults: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Brief Mindfulness Training Mitigates College Students' Mobile Phone Addiction: The Mediating Effect of the Sense of Meaning in Life.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
- Mindfulness Intervention Improves Coping and Perceptions of Children's Behavior among Families with Elevated Risk.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMainland China has the most smartphone users worldwide, especially among college students, while mindfulness intervention can significantly alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use. We examined the effects of a brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use and investigated if this effect is mediated by self-control.
methodsParticipants were recruited randomly from a university in Beijing of China. Forty-four college students were assigned to a mindfulness group or a control group. The mindfulness group took part in a brief (30 min) single-session mindfulness intervention. The control group was instructed to listen to a neutral news audio recording for the same duration (30 min). The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale, and Self-control Scale were used to measure state mindfulness, problematic smartphone use, and self-control of college students at pre-intervention and post-intervention, respectively.
resultsTwo-way repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that the mindfulness group had significant improvements in state mindfulness (p = .049) and self-control (p = .012), and had significant alleviation in problematic smartphone use (p < .001) at post-intervention. In the regression model, self-control had a mediating effect between mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use (95% CI [0.490, 7.216]).
conclusionsA brief single-session mindfulness intervention can alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use and increase the level of state mindfulness and self-control compared to the control group. Self-control can completely mediate the efficacy of the mindfulness intervention in reducing problematic smartphone use.
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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.