Vol. 2026 No. 2 (2026)
Articles

A study on adolescent mobile phone dependence, psychological flexibility, and social support

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  • Jonathan Allen
Jonathan Allen
Leeds Developing Minds Lab, University of Leeds, School of Psychology, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom

Published 17-03-2026

Keywords

  • Mobile phone dependence,
  • Social support,
  • Psychological flexibility

Copyright (c) 2026 The Young Thinker's Review

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

[1]
J. Allen, “A study on adolescent mobile phone dependence, psychological flexibility, and social support”, The Young Thinker's Rev., vol. 2026, no. 2, pp. 1–7, Mar. 2026, doi: 10.62852/ytr/2026/244.

Abstract

Using stratified sampling, 800 students from two vocational colleges in Shandong Province were surveyed with the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale (MPATS), Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), the Chinese version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II), and the Chinese version of the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ). The study found that females scored higher than males on indicators of mobile phone addiction tendency, withdrawal symptoms, and salience (t = 2.153–3.134, all P < 0.05). Secondary vocational students scored higher than higher vocational students on mobile phone addiction tendency, withdrawal symptoms, social comfort, and mood modification (t = 2.842–5.252, all P < 0.01). All indicators of social support were negatively correlated with all indicators of mobile phone dependence (r = -0.072 to -0.208, all P < 0.01), while psychological inflexibility and cognitive fusion were positively correlated with all indicators of mobile phone dependence (r = 0.344–0.420, all P < 0.01). Cognitive defusion showed a significant partial correlation with mobile phone addiction tendency (r = 0.138, P < 0.01). Psychological inflexibility, cognitive fusion, cognitive defusion, and objective support had direct predictive effects on mobile phone dependence, with social support playing a partial mediating role between mobile phone dependence and psychological flexibility. Mobile phone dependence behavior is closely related to psychological flexibility and social support. Enhancing psychological flexibility and social support can effectively reduce mobile phone dependence behavior.

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