Mobile phone addiction and depression: Multiple mediating effects of social anxiety and attentional bias to negative emotional information

Abstract

In order to investigate the relationship between mobile phone addiction and depression, the multiple mediating effects of social anxiety and negative emotional information attentional bias on this relationship were discussed by integrating both emotional and cognitive factors. In study 1, 545 college students completed the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale. In study 2, 51 college students were selected to use the questionnaire method and the 2(the emotion types of matching facial expression: Negative and neutral) × 2(the location of the probe point: The same side as the negative emotion face and the opposite side of the negative emotion face) within-subjects design. The results showed that: (1) there were significant positive correlations between mobile phone addiction, social anxiety and depression, and social anxiety played a completely mediating role between mobile phone addiction and depression; (2) social anxiety and negative emotional information attentional bias played a chain-mediating role in the relationship between mobile phone addiction and depression, while negative emotional information attentional bias had no significant mediating effect between mobile phone addiction and depression. Specifically, mobile phone addiction affects depression in two ways: One is the single mediating effect of social anxiety, the other is the chain mediating effect of social anxiety → attention bias of negative emotional information.