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

Depression is an important and widely studied measure of individual psychological and social adaptation. Previous studies have explored the mechanism of depression from various perspectives and found that addiction is a significant risk factor for the development of depression. In recent years, with the rapid development of mobile Internet technology and smart phones, researchers have found that mobile phone addiction, as another important aspect of behavioral addiction, also has a potential impact on depression. Further studies have found that mobile-addicted individuals spend too much time and energy in the virtual world, thus leading to social anxiety. In addition, when social anxiety is so high that it affects the daily life of individuals, individuals are prone to suffer depressive symptoms. According to the cognitive behavioral model of social anxiety and emotional consistent effect, attentional bias to negative information is a key factor in maintaining the anxiety state among individuals with social anxiety. When an individual experiences social anxiety, they will pay more attention to negative information. Depression cognitive theory also posits that attentional bias to negative emotional information is closely related with the occurrence, development and maintenance of depression. Therefore, social anxiety and attentional bias to negative emotional information may be important factors in the effects of mobile phone addiction on depression. This study integrated emotional and cognitive factors and explored the effects of social anxiety and attentional bias to negative emotional information on the relationship between mobile phone addiction on depression through two studies. For study 1, a sample of 545 college students completed the Mobile Phone Addiction Index, Beck Depression Inventory and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale. For study 2, 51 college students were selected to complete questionnaires and a 2 (Emotional types of paired facial expressions: negative, neutral) x 2 (Detection point position: same as negative emotional face expression, different from negative emotional face expression) within-subjects task to investigate the serial mediating effects of social anxiety and attentional bias to negative emotional information on the relationship between mobile phone addiction and depression. All the data were analyzed by SPSS 20.0 and Mplus 8.3. Some valuable results were obtained as follows. (1) There were significant positive correlations among mobile phone addiction, social anxiety and depression. Social anxiety fully mediated the effect of mobile phone addiction on depression. (2) Social anxiety and attentional bias to negative emotional information serially mediated the relationship between mobile phone addiction and depression. However, attentional bias to negative emotional information did not significantly mediate the effect of mobile phone addiction on depression. Specifically, mobile phone addiction affects depression through two pathways: one is the separate mediating role of social anxiety; the other is the serial mediation pathway of social anxiety -> attentional bias to negative emotional information. This study expands previous research on mobile phone addiction and individual psychological adaptation, enriches the field of addiction and depression research, and has significance regarding the reduction or control of the negative effects of addiction on depression. Additionally, this study also provides evidence for causal inference that social anxiety and attentional bias can alter depression levels, suggesting that attentional bias training is likely to be a promising alternative therapy for depression and providing new ideas for the intervention and treatment of clinical mental disorders.