The relationship between self-control and college student smartphone addiction: a two-wave multiple mediation model.

Although low self-control is regarded as an important influence factor of college student smartphone addiction, the mediating mechanism is still unclear. Based on the I–PACE model, the present study aims to explore the multiple mediating roles of social anxiety and procrastination in the effect of self-control on smartphone addiction among college students, as well as the gender differences, using a semi-longitudinal design. Our sample consisted of 1143 Chinese college students (36.4% males; M_age=21.91 years, SD = 1.02 years, range from 19 to 28 years) who completed the Brief Self-control Scale, the Interaction Anxiousness Scale, the Pure Pocrastination Scale, and the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version. SPSS 26.0 was used to analyze correlations among variables and Mplus 8.0 was used to test the structural equation model and gender differences. The results indicated that self-control was negatively associated with smartphone addiction. Social anxiety and procrastination sequentially mediated the link between self-control and smartphone addiction. Furthermore, although the proposed mediation model did not show significant gender differences, we found different associations between self-control, procrastination and smartphone addiction between males and females. The results of this study may contribute to intervention and prevention programs to reduce smartphone addiction among students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]