ReviewPreventive medicine reports2024
Could physical activity alleviate smartphone addiction in university students? A systematic literature review.
Review in Preventive medicine reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A network meta-analysis of mind-body exercise interventions for internet addiction symptoms in young adults.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Objective and perceived smartphone use volume, addiction risk, and deprivation feelings.Addictive behaviors reports · 2026Article
- The Mediating Roles of Sleep Quality and Physical Activity in the Association Between Smartphone Addiction and Physical Fitness Among College Students.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Problematic Smartphone Use and Quality of Life Among Greek Nursing Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Gender differences in smartphone addiction, physical activity, and quality of life: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The Dose-Response Relationship Between Leisure-Time Physical Activity and Smartphone Addiction in First-Year Tehran University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Anxiety, Psychological Resilience, and Physical Activity Among University Students: Mediation and Latent Profile Analyses.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- When Screens Replace Sleep: Short Video Addiction Impairs Executive Function Through Sleep Disruption in Youth-Is Physical Activity the Antidote?Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Comparative changes in problematic smartphone use tendencies across four active exercise modalities among college students: an exploratory multicategorical relative indirect-effect analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The relationship among college students' mobile phone addiction, bedtime procrastination, and physical activity: a cross-lagged study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- A sex-specific difference in smartphone addiction, physical activity level, and cognitive functions among university students.AIMS public health · 2026Article
- The relationship between smartphone addiction and academic burnout among physical education teacher students: a chain mediating of meaning in life and physical exercise.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Assessing differences in emotional intelligence among lifestyle and AI usage profiles generated via Self-Organizing Maps in first-year university students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Physical activity motivation is inversely associated with anxiety: a cross-sectional serial mediation analysis involving smartphone addiction symptoms and sleep quality in medical undergraduates.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Exploring the influence of problematic smartphone use on physical activity: chain mediation of Self-Control and Exercise Procrastination and moderation by Independent and Interdependent Self-Construal.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Exploring the underlying mechanisms linking mobile phone addiction to impaired sleep in Chinese college students.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Determinants of smartphone addiction among university students in Jordan.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Prevalence and predictors of problematic smartphone use in a sample of Spanish undergraduate students.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Relationship Between Physical Activity and Mobile Phone Addiction in College Students: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- One-year update on physical activity and smartphone addiction in university students: A systematic review of novel research.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: Recently, the widespread surge in smartphone addiction (SA) has raised major global health concerns and prompted researchers to scrutinize the inverse relationship between physical activity (PA) and the risk of SA. This systematic literature review aims to synthesize the empirical research on the relationship between PA and SA among university students representing the most affected age group. Methods: Adopting the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, we explored five databases: PubMed, Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN), Oxford Research Archive, Journal Storage (JSTOR), and Google Scholar. We used the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tools (MMAT) for quality assessment. Results: Thirty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. Twenty-eight of them were cross-sectional, and three were experimental. The 31 studies emerged from 12 countries, most stemming (45.16%) from China. Their findings suggest an inverse relationship between PA and SA in the examined population. However, the direct relationship may be weak based on correlational studies, while intervention research yields noteworthy effects. Still, other factors like resilience may mediate the studied relationship. Methodological concerns render the results of correlational studies tentative. Conclusions: Regular PA could be a promising preventive measure for SA. Future work should use objective PA indices in longitudinal research designs while assessing the type and duration of smartphone applications used via device meters. In correlational studies, interviews should follow up on the high SA risk or too much device use. In conclusion, moderate evidence indicates that PA
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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.