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

Wenxia Tong; Shuqiao Meng

doi:10.2147/PRBM.S419799

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

Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2023 Sep 6:16:3647-3657. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S419799. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Wenxia Tong¹, Shuqiao Meng¹

Affiliation

¹ College of Physical Education, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

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 e-health literacy 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 (r=-.713, P<0.01; r=-.571, P<0.01), and physical exercise was significantly positively correlated with e-health literacy (r=0.616, P<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.

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 negative emotions 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.

Keywords: chain mediation; e-health literacy; mobile phone addiction; negative emotion; physical exercise.

Grants and funding

This research was financially supported by the 2022 General Program of Humanities and Social Sciences Research of the Ministry of Education, China (No. 22YJC890018), the Humanities and Social Sciences Fund Project of Yangzhou University, China (No. xjj2023-21), and the Yangzhou University 2022 University Teaching Reform Project, China (No. YZUJX2022-C8).