Effects of Physical Activity on Mobile Phone Addiction Among College Students: The Chain-Based Mediating Role of Negative Emotion and E-Health Literacy

Sep 13, 2023Psychology research and behavior management

How Physical Activity May Reduce Phone Addiction in College Students Through Lower Negative Emotions and Better Online Health Skills

AI simplified

PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Abstract

A study of 4,621 Chinese college students found that physical exercise is significantly negatively correlated with mobile phone addiction.

Higher levels of physical exercise are associated with lower levels of mobile phone addiction and .
Increased physical activity correlates positively with higher .
Negative emotions and e-health literacy independently mediate the relationship between physical exercise and mobile phone addiction.
Both negative emotions and e-health literacy also have a combined chain mediating effect on mobile phone addiction.

AI simplified

BACKGROUND: Smartphones have become an important tool for college students' study and life, but mobile phone addiction caused by excessive dependence use of cell phones can have serious negative impacts on college students' mental health, life behaviors, and so on. It is urgent to explore the causes and influence mechanisms of college students' cell phone addiction.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between physical exercise and mobile phone addiction among Chinese college students and the mediating role of negative affect and between the two.

METHODS: The stratified sampling method was used to investigate the physical activity, mobile phone addiction, negative emotion and e-health literacy of 4621 university students in Jiangsu Province using the Physical Activity Rating scale, Mobile Phone Addiction scale, Depression-anxiety-stress scale and E-Health Literacy scale, Thus the data were statistically analysed using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 23.0.

RESULTS: (1) Physical exercise was significantly negatively correlated with mobile phone addiction and negative emotion among college students (=-.713,<0.01;=-.571,<0.01), and physical exercise was significantly positively correlated with e-health literacy (=0.616,<0.01); (2) Negative emotion and e-health literacy played independent mediating roles between physical exercise and mobile phone addiction, respectively; (3) Negative emotion and e-health literacy played chain mediating roles between physical exercise and mobile phone addiction. r P r P r P

CONCLUSION: This study explored the potential mechanisms of cell phone addiction in college students and found that physical activity can influence Internet addiction through the independent mediating effect including the chain mediating effect of and e-health literacy. This study further reveals the mechanism of action of physical exercise affecting college students' cell phone addiction, and provides some reference value for the prevention and intervention of college students cell phone addiction.

Key numbers

42.1%

Effect Size of Negative Emotion Mediation

Percentage of total effect accounted for by in the mediation model.

−0.107

Direct Effect on Mobile Phone Addiction

Effect size of physical exercise's direct impact on mobile phone addiction.

−0.199

Total Effect on Mobile Phone Addiction

Combined effect of all mediating factors on mobile phone addiction.

Full Text

We can’t show the full text here under this license. Use the link below to read it at the source.

View full text (PDF) ↗

Abstract

Key numbers

Full Text

Related papers

what lands in your inbox each week: