Poster #112 - Self-control Mediates between Hong Kong Adolescents’ Smartphone Addiction and Emotional Well-being after School Reopening

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Due to such epidemic-control measures as city-wide lockdown and school closure during COVID-19 around the globe, adolescents’ social lives have been compromised. Hong Kong adolescents have experienced months of social distancing and online schooling. Adolescents had little, if any, social interactions with peers. As a result, maladjustment, such as poor emotional regulation and depressive symptoms, has been reported by Hong Kong adolescents during the stay-at-home period (She et al., 2021). Smartphone addiction might be one factor contributing to adolescents' maladjustment during the pandemic. Adolescents who often use their smartphones tend to consume more information from social media, which might cause more stress, anxiety, and negative emotions (Yue et al., 2022). Meanwhile, self-control may serve as the underlying mechanism between smartphone addiction and emotional well-being in school. Prior research showed that adolescents addicted to smartphones reported lower levels of self-control – an important trait that predicts adolescents’ emotional well-being in school (Bassi et al., 2021; King & Gaerlan, 2013). Taken together, we hypothesized that adolescents who are less addicted to smartphones tend to have higher levels of self-control, thus leading to more positive emotional experiences after returning to school compared to the stay-at-home period.
Participants were 200 Chinese secondary school students living in Hong Kong recruited from schools and online through Instagram (Mage=16.9 years, SD=0.9 years, 71% were girls). Students self-reported their smartphone usage, trait self-control, and how frequently they searched for COVID-related information online (used as covariates). In addition, they reported on 28 pairs of emotions they experienced after school reopening such as nervous–calm, alone–accompanied, and bored–attentive, using a scale developed by Bassi et al. (2022). To analyze data regarding adolescents’ emotions, we conducted a latent profile analysis using Mplus with the robust maximum likelihood estimator. Results indicated that the three-group solution was best fitted – it had the lowest AIC (AIC=4207.697), BIC (BIC= 4319.839), and statistically significant bootstrapped likelihood ratio test (BLRT p< .001). The three latent groups were labeled as negative mood group, neutral mood group, and positive mood group. These groups were then dummy-coded into 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Mediation analysis showed that adolescents’ smartphone addiction was indirectly associated with negative mood via lower levels of self-control (β= -.11, SE=.04, 95% CI=-.19, -.05). Meanwhile, the direct effect between smartphone addiction and mood group was not significant (β= -.06, SE=.07, 95% CI=-.08, .19).
The current study sheds light on adolescents’ emotional health after returning to school. Our findings highlighted the role of self-control in adolescents’ emotional experiences after months of social isolation and online learning. Students with higher self-control seem to enjoy school more and are less likely to feel negative emotions in school. From a practical perspective, fostering high levels of self-control in adolescents might be beneficial to adolescents’ better emotional states after returning to school. Future studies should follow up with students to investigate students' emotional well-being before and after returning to school. Policymakers and school stakeholders should take into account youth’s emotional health, in addition to physical health, when developing school policies.

Authors

• Yao Sun, University of Maryland - Baltimore County
  Presenting Author

• Hatice Gursoy, University of Maryland - Baltimore County

• Kevin K. H. Chung, The Education University of Hong Kong