Smartphone addiction and self-esteem among university students: a moderated mediation and latent profile analysis

This study examined the relationship between smartphone addiction and self-esteem among university students, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of sleep quality and physical learning engagement and the moderating role of gender. Both variable centered and person centered approaches were employed.

In total, 1,130 valid questionnaires were analyzed. The measurement tools included the Mobile Phone Addiction Index (MPAI), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student (UWES-S). Common method bias tests, descriptive analyses, correlation analyses, and gender difference examinations were carried out in SPSS 26.0. A moderated serial mediation model was estimated using the PROCESS macro with bootstrap resampling, and latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted in Mplus 8.3.

Smartphone addiction was positively associated with sleep quality (β = 0.066, 95% CI [0.048,0.084], p < 0.001), negatively associated with physical learning engagement (β=-0.107, 95% CI [-0.203,-0.010], p = 0.031), and positively associated with self-esteem (β = 0.072, 95% CI [0.038,0.106], p < 0.001). Sleep quality was positively associated with self-esteem (β = 0.402, 95% CI [0.248,0.557], p < 0.001). Notably, the positive associations involving self-esteem were directionally inconsistent with most prior literature and should be regarded as unexpected and exploratory. The indirect effect through sleep quality was significant for both female students (effect=0.026, 95% CI [0.014,0.042]) and male students (effect=0.018, 95% CI [0.008,0.029]), whereas the indirect effect (effect=0.007, 95% CI [0.002,0.014]) through physical learning engagement and the serial indirect effect (effect=0.002, 95% CI [0.001,0.005]) were significant only among male students. However, none of the indices of moderated mediation was significant. Gender significantly moderated the direct smartphone addiction-self-esteem association (β=-0.055, 95% CI [-0.101,-0.010], p = 0.017). In addition, LPA identified three distinct subgroups characterized by different combinations of sleep quality and physical learning engagement, and these subgroups differed significantly in smartphone addiction and self-esteem.

The association between smartphone addiction and self-esteem in university students appears to involve multiple pathways, with sleep quality representing a more stable correlate than physical learning engagement. Gender differences may also be relevant to this association. LPA identified three subgroups based on sleep quality and physical learning engagement that differed significantly in smartphone addiction and self-esteem. These findings provide only preliminary and exploratory evidence for a multifactorial understanding of the association between problematic smartphone use and self-esteem, particularly given the cross-sectional design, modest effect sizes, and the counterintuitive direction of some associations.