Effects of community-based open and closed skill exercise interventions on ecological executive function and mobile...

Taking the community as the intervention setting, this study aims to explore the intervention effects of community-based open-skill and closed-skill exercises on adolescents' ecological executive function and mobile phone dependence. It further verifies the mediating role of ecological executive function in the relationship between exercise types and mobile phone dependence, so as to provide scientific basis for communities to formulate precise intervention programs for adolescents' mobile phone dependence.

A randomized controlled trial design was adopted. A total of 61 adolescents with mobile phone dependence were recruited (aged 13-15 years; the open-skill exercise group had a mean age of 13.76 ± 0.45 years, and the closed-skill exercise group had a mean age of 13.57 ± 0.79 years). They were randomly divided into the open-skill exercise group (31 participants, including 24 boys accounting for 77.42% and 7 girls accounting for 22.58%) and the closed-skill exercise group (30 participants, including 18 boys accounting for 60.00% and 12 girls accounting for 40.00%). The intervention was of moderate intensity, with duration of 8 weeks, 3 sessions per week, and 60 min per session. The Adolescent Executive Function Scale and Adolescent Mobile Phone Dependence Self-Rating Questionnaire were used to assess the adolescents' ecological executive function and the degree of mobile phone dependence. Statistical analyses, including independent samples t-test, chi-square test, multivariate analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis, and mediating effect test, were conducted using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 16.0 software.

Open-skill exercise was more beneficial for improving adolescents' ecological inhibitory control (η² = 0.103) and ecological working memory (η² = 0.200; p < 0.05). It was also more effective in reducing adolescents' mobile phone dependence (η² = 0.290), as well as withdrawal symptoms (η² = 0.105), craving (η² = 0.145), and physical and psychological impacts (η² = 0.296) caused by mobile phone dependence (p < 0.05). Further mediating effect test showed that open-skill exercise could indirectly reduce mobile phone dependence by improving ecological inhibitory control and ecological working memory.

Community-based open-skill exercise is significantly superior to closed- skill exercise in improving adolescents' ecological executive function and reducing mobile phone dependence. Moreover, ecological inhibitory control and ecological working memory play a mediating role between open-skill exercise and mobile phone dependence. The results of this study provide scientific support for communities to formulate precise intervention programs for adolescents' mobile phone dependence, and popularizing open-skill exercise can help alleviate the problem of excessive mobile phone dependence among adolescents.