Self-Esteem and Problematic Mobile Phone Use Among Middle School Students: Mediation of Social Anxiety and Escapism Motivation

Jiang Shuyang; Liu Rude; Feng Mao; Hong Wei; Jin Fangkai

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240422

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (4) : 940-946. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240422

Research on Social Psychological Service in the New Era

Self-Esteem and Problematic Mobile Phone Use Among Middle School Students: Mediation of Social Anxiety and Escapism Motivation

Jiang Shuyang^1,2, Liu Rude², Feng Mao², Hong Wei², Jin Fangkai²

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Abstract

Problematic mobile phone use refers to a constellation of addiction-related symptoms, such as craving, dependence, tolerance and withdrawal. Previous studies have demonstrated that problematic mobile phone use may lead to a variety of harmful consequences, including academic failures, sleep disturbances, depression symptoms, and low life satisfaction. These studies emphasize the urgent need to prevent problematic mobile phone use, especially for school students. Studies have indicated that 10.5% of adolescents are problematic mobile phone users and 20.5% are potential problematic users. Thus, the current study aims to explore potential predictors and underlying mechanisms of problematic mobile phone use to promote students' physical and psychological well-being.
Researchers have consistently provided evidence indicating that high self-esteem may be related to lower levels of problematic mobile phone use. However, little is known about the psychological mechanism underlying this relation. Drawn from the Sociometer Theory and the cognitive-behavioral model, dysfunctional self-schemata (e.g., low self-esteem) may contribute to negative emotions during social interactions (e.g., social anxiety), which lead to negative coping strategies (e.g., escapism motivation), and further increase the potential risk of using mobile phone problematically. Therefore, social anxiety and escapism motivation may be plausible explanations for the association between self-esteem and problematic mobile phone use.
The present study investigated the relationship between self-esteem and problematic mobile phone use among Chinese adolescent students, and explored the mediating effects of social anxiety and escapism motivation. Using the relevant questionnaires, 438 middle school students (203 boys, 231 girls) were recruited for the study. All the participants have finished the questionnaires to report their status of self-esteem, social anxiety, escapism motivation and problematic mobile phone use. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations coefficients between the main variables were calculated using SPSS 23.0 software. To test the hypotheses, we used PROCESS macro to calculate the 95% confidence intervals with 5000 resamples. The main conclusions were drawn as follows: (1) Correlation analysis showed that students' self-esteem was negatively correlated with social anxiety, escapism motivation, and problematic mobile phone use. (2) Regression analysis revealed that self-esteem was negatively associated with problematic mobile phone use. (3) Mediation analysis revealed that self-esteem was negatively associated with students' problematic mobile phone use not only through the direct path, but also through the indirect path of social anxiety and escapism motivation, as well as the chain mediating path between social anxiety and escapism motivation.
The findings of the present study contributed to the previous studies by highlighting the crucial role of self-esteem and demonstrating the process of positive reinforcement in the etiology of problematic use. These results can also provide practical guidelines for protecting adolescents from addicting to mobile phone. For instance, school prevention programs can include specific activities to enhance students' self-evaluation and improve their social skills to deal with complex social situations. For example, more communication skills and perspective-taking training may be helpful to reduce social anxiety and build up better interpersonal relationships. When students have practical strategies to cope with daily life challenges, they are less likely to resort to mobile phones for distraction, which can help them alleviate their distress.

Key words

self-esteem / problematic mobile phone use / social anxiety / escapism motivation / middle school students

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Jiang Shuyang, Liu Rude, Feng Mao, Hong Wei, Jin Fangkai. Self-Esteem and Problematic Mobile Phone Use Among Middle School Students: Mediation of Social Anxiety and Escapism Motivation[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(4): 940-946 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240422

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