The Mediating Roles of Emotional Regulation on Negative Emotion and Internet Addiction Among Chinese Adolescents From a Development Perspective

Abstract

Previous researches indicated that emotional regulation can be associated with depression and anxiety, which may be an important mediating factor between emotional regulation and internet addiction. However, the mechanism between these associations has received little attention and it is still unclear. This study has examined 716 Chinese adolescents, 341 were males (47.6%), aged 13 to 18(Mean = 14.58, SD = 1.50), using a cross-sectional survey involving Young's Diagnostic Questionnaire for Internet Addiction, the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the seven-item Generalized Anxiety (GAD-7) scale, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Correlation analysis, multiple-group analysis and structural equation modeling were carried out in SPSS Statistics version 23 (IBM, Armonk, NY) and AMOS version 21. Cognitive reappraisal had a significantly negative direct effect on Internet addiction (β = −0.118, p < 0.05). Furthermore, negative emotions mediated the relationships between expression suppression and Internet addiction [β = 0.149, 95% CI = (0.099, 0.212)] and the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and Internet addiction [β = −0.101, 95% CI = (−0.147, −0.065)]. The differences in the structure path coefficients for different development stages demonstrated that recognitive reappraisal showed more protective roles for negative emotion (p < 0.01), and negative emotion also predict Internet addiction more effectively in high school students (p < 0.001). However, cognitive reappraisal directly predicted negative Internet addiction in junior high school students. Therefore, the intervention on adolescents for internet addiction should not only focus on emotional regulation and negative emotion, but also development stages of adolescents.

Psychological distress and internet addiction following the COVID-19 outbreak: Fear of missing out and boredom proneness as mediators

“…The following is an example item: “During COVID-19, have you tried many times to control or stop surfing the Internet without success?”. The scale has also shown good reliability and validity in other studies ( Liang et al, 2021 ), and the Cronbach's alpha for this study was 0.85.…”

Emotion Regulation Choice in Internet Addiction: Less Reappraisal, Lower Frontal Alpha Asymmetry

“…69,70 A meta-analysis also supports this relationship by demonstrating that lower levels of reappraisal are associated with higher levels of depression with a small-to-moderate effect size. 71 Secondly, this study replicated previous findings that healthy individuals use more reappraisal in low-intensity situations but more distraction in high-intensity situations regardless of stimulus valence. 38,64,72 And a similar trend was also found in the IA group.…”

“…69,70 A meta-analysis also supports this relationship by demonstrating that lower levels of reappraisal are associated with higher levels of depression with a small-to-moderate effect size. 71…”

From Emotional (Dys)Regulation to Internet Addiction: A Mediation Model of Problematic Social Media Use among Italian Young Adults

“…The second hypothesis (H2) was also confirmed: the mediation model showed a direct effect of emotional (dys)regulation on IA, suggesting that emotional regulation may play an important role in the development of IA. Indeed, studies have shown that individuals with IA—especially adolescents—have greater difficulties with emotional regulation, resulting from excessive suppression and poor cognitive reappraisal [ 47 , 103 , 104 ]. The excessive suppression of negative emotional experiences involved in emotional dysregulation may strengthen its correlation with IA.…”