ArticleBMC psychology2025
The impact of academic anxiety on smartphone addiction among college students: the mediating role of self-regulatory fatigue and the moderating role of mindfulness.
Article in BMC psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Supportive University Climate and AI Dependence Among Undergraduates: The Sequential Mediating Role of Academic Self-Efficacy and Self-Control.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mindfulness as a mediator and moderator between interpersonal alienation and smartphone addiction among Taiwanese university students.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Heterogeneity in Short Video Addiction and Its Association with Inattention and Negative Emotions Among College Students.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Association between problematic smartphone use, sleep quality, and chronotype among Sudanese medical students during armed conflict: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Disentangling stable traits from dynamic processes: a longitudinal investigation of academic burnout and problematic mobile phone use.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Association between anxiety and aggression among students at a medical college in China: a cross-sectional analysis of indirect associations involving physical activity motivation and self-regulatory fatigue.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- When stress meets the feed: algorithmic curation, digital stress relief, and academic amotivation in the attention economy.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Smartphone addiction, emotional coping strategies, and mental health symptoms in Chinese university students: a gender-based analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Metacognition mediates the relationship between anxiety and smartphone addiction in university students.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAcademic anxiety is recognized as a risk factor of smartphone addiction among college students. However, the underlying mechanisms and moderating factors remain insufficiently explored.
methodThis study examines the impact of academic anxiety on smartphone addiction, focusing on the mediating role of self-regulatory fatigue and the moderating role of mindfulness. Using convenience sampling strategy, a cross-sectional survey was implemented. Data were collected from a survey of 685 college students by using the Academic Anxiety Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale, Self-Regulatory Fatigue Scale, and Mindfulness Scale. The hypothesized moderated mediation model was analyzed using Hayes' (2017) PROCESS macro (Model 59).
resultsModerated mediation analysis finds that academic anxiety significantly positively predicts smartphone addiction (β = 0.30, t = 7.24, 95%CI=[0.22, 0.38], p<0.001) in college students. Academic anxiety also indirectly predicts smartphone addiction through self-regulatory fatigue (β = 0.09, t = 2.43, 95%CI=[0.02, 0.16], p<0.05), with the mediation effect accounting for 11.76%. The mediation pathways are moderated by mindfulness. Compared with students with low mindfulness, the influence of academic anxiety on self-regulatory fatigue is stronger in students with high mindfulness(β = 0.10, t = 3.85, 95%CI=[0.05, 0.16], p<0.001). However, compared with students with low mindfulness, the influence of self-regulatory fatigue on smartphone addiction is weaker in students with high mindfulness(β=-0.08, t= -2.53, 95%CI=[-0.15, -0.02], p<0.05). That is, among individuals with a high level of mindfulness, mindfulness enhances the positive relationship between academic anxiety and self-regulatory fatigue while weakening the positive association between self-regulatory fatigue and smartphone addiction.
conclusionThese findings elucidate the internal mechanisms linking academic anxiety to smartphone addiction and underscoring the dual role of mindfulness. The results offer valuable insights for developing strategies to prevent and manage smartphone addiction among college students.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.