ArticleHealth and quality of life outcomes2025
The role of psychological flexibility and emotion regulation in the relationship between smartphone addiction and psychological wellbeing in adolescents: three-wave longitudinal serial mediation study.
Article in Health and quality of life outcomes, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Network analysis and directed acyclic graph of smartphone addiction and multiple mental health factors in youths.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Parallel mediation of psychological flexibility and vulnerability between multiple-screen addiction and mental health outcomes in adolescents.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Directional Relations Between Symptoms of Adolescent Smartphone Addiction, Academic Burnout, and Psychological Distress: A Cross-Lagged Panel Network Analysis.Psychology research and behavior management · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWhen the increasing prevalence of Smartphone Addiction (SA) and its potential negative effects on mental health among adolescents are taken into consideration, an in-depth investigation of the relationship between SA and Psychological Well-being (PW) is of critical importance. Therefore, using a three-wave longitudinal research design, this study aimed to examine the serial mediation role of Psychological Flexibility (PF) and Emotion Regulation (ER) in the relationship between SA and PW. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine SA, PF, ER, and PW relationships and mediating mechanisms in an adolescent sample using a longitudinal design.
methodsThe study included 448 adolescents (49.8% female and 50.2% male; Range
resultsCompared to those who used their smartphones for 0-2 h and 2-4 h, adolescents who reported to use their smartphones for more than four hours daily were found to have higher SA scores and lower PW, ER, and PF scores across all three time points (T1, T2, and T3). The findings indicated that SA at T1 negatively predicted PW at T3 (β = -0.34, p < .001), PF at T2 (β = -0.39, p < .001), and ER at T2 (β = -0.23, p < .001). On the other hand, PF at T2 positively predicted ER at T2 (β = 0.17, p < .001) and PW at T3 (β = 0.40, p < .001), and ER at T2 positively predicted PW at T3 (β = 0.73, p < .001). Besides, PF at T2 (β = -0.15, SE = 0.03, 95% CI = [-0.2036, -0.1053]) and ER at T2 (β = -0.17, SE = 0.03, 95% CI = [-0.2288, -0.1054]) were found to fully mediate the longitudinal relationship between SA at T1 and PW at T3. The longitudinal serial mediation model accounted for 32% of the variance in PW (R
conclusionsThis study shows that SA leads to a decrease in adolescents' PF skills and their capacity to effectively manage their emotional reactions over time, which in turn leads to lower PW levels. The findings emphasize the potential of interventions to improve PF and ER skills in alleviating SA-related mental health problems in adolescents. The findings also suggest that both strengthening PF and ER skills separately and addressing them simultaneously could significantly increase the effectiveness of treatment approaches.
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.