关键词: 科技干扰, 智能手机成瘾, 情绪症状, 环境敏感性, 青少年

Abstract: The concept of “technoference” is defined as everyday interruptions in interpersonal interactions due to technology devices. Previous studies on technoference have focused on its impact between couples or parents, and now some scholars have begun to pay attention to its impact on adolescents in the family environment, which have found that technoference may lead to a series of internalization and externalization problems of adolescents, but few studies have explored the intrinsic mechanism. According to Problem-Behavior Theory, family is one of the most important environmental systems, which can affect the individual’s behavioral system. Therefore, smartphone addiction, as a common externalization problem related to technology, may be one of problem behaviors of adolescents induced by technoference. Hence, this study attempted to explore the relationship between technoference and adolescents’ smartphone addiction, as well as the potential mechanisms underlying this relation. From the perspective of emotional function, emotion can reflect the information in the environment and then influence people’s behavior. Accordingly, technoference occurring in the family environment is an essential environmental information, which may affect the adolescents’ smartphone addiction through influencing their emotions. Therefore, this study attempted to explore the mediating role of emotion symptoms. At the same time, human development is related to the environment, but different people may have different sensitivity to the environment, individuals with high environmental sensitivity are more sensitive to both positive and negative environments, so environmental sensitivity may play a moderating role in the relationship between technoference and smartphone addiction. To conclude, the present study constructed a moderated mediation model to examine whether emotional symptoms mediated the relationship between technoference and adolescents’ smartphone addiction, and whether environmental sensitivity moderated this mediation effect. A total of 3219 junior high school students aged 11~16 from 2 middle schools was recruited in the study to complete the self-report questionnaires. Four questionnaires were used in the study: Technology Device Interference Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale, Emotion Symptoms Subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Highly Sensitive Child Scale. For data analysis, common method biases were examined at first. Then, correlation analysis was conducted to obtain the relationship between variables among the hypothesized model. In the end, the moderated mediation effects were tested by the Mplus 7.4. The correlation analysis showed that: technoference was positively correlated with emotional symptoms, environmental sensitivity and smartphone addiction, emotional symptoms was positively correlated with environmental sensitivity and smartphone addiction, while environmental sensitivity was positively correlated with smartphone addiction. The testing for moderated mediation model indicated that: (1) technoference had a direct effect on smartphone addiction of adolescents positively, and also had an indirect effect on smartphone addiction of adolescents through emotional symptoms; (2) environmental sensitivity regulated the first half of the mediation process in which technoference affected smartphone addiction of adolescents. Specifically, high environmental sensitivity could enhance the impact of technoference on emotional symptoms of adolescents. The findings revealed the effect of technoference on smartphone addiction of adolescents and its functionary mechanism, and brought some important inspirations for prevention and intervention of smartphone addiction of adolescents.

Key words: technoference, smartphone addiction, emotional symptoms, environmental sensitivity, adolescents