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. 2022 Sep 2:13:971735.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.971735. eCollection 2022.

Correlations between smartphone addiction and alexithymia, attachment style, and subjective well-being: A meta-analysis

Yueming Ding  1 , Haitao Huang  1 , Yiming Zhang  1 , Qianwen Peng  1 , Jingfen Yu  1 , Guangli Lu  2 , Huifang Wu  2 , Chaoran Chen  1
Affiliations

Correlations between smartphone addiction and alexithymia, attachment style, and subjective well-being: A meta-analysis

Yueming Ding et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Background: Smartphone addiction (SA) has become a social problem that affects peoples' quality of life and is frequently reported to be correlated with alexithymia, avoidant or anxious attachment styles, and subjective well-being. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between SA and alexithymia, attachment style, and subjective well-being.

Methods: A meta-analysis was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The following electronic databases were searched: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WANFANG DATA, and Chongqing VIP Information Co., Ltd. (VIP). Stata 16.0 was used to analyze the overall effect and test the moderating effect.

Results: One hundred and ten studies were included, involving a total of 96,680 participants. SA had a significantly high positive correlation with alexithymia (r = 0.40), attachment anxiety (r = 0.37), and negative emotions (r = 0.31), and a low positive correlation with attachment avoidance (r = 0.17). In addition, there was a high negative correlation between SA and subjective well-being (r = -0.33) and a low negative correlation between SA, life satisfaction (r = -0.17), and positive emotions (r = -0.18). A moderation analysis revealed that age significantly moderated the relationship between SA and positive emotions. The tools for measuring SA significantly moderated the relationship between SA, alexithymia, attachment anxiety, and subjective well-being. Meanwhile, subjective well-being measurement tools significantly moderated the relationships between SA, subjective well-being, and negative emotions.

Conclusion: SA was closely related to alexithymia, attachment style, and subjective well-being. In the future, longitudinal research can be conducted to better investigate the dynamic changes in the relationship between them.

Systematic review registration: [www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/], identifier [CRD42022334798].

Keywords: alexithymia; attachment; meta-analysis; smartphone addiction; subjective well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The flow chart of the study selection process.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Funnel plots for assessing publication bias within studies related to (A) alexithymia, (B) attachment anxiety, (C) attachment avoidance, (D) subjective well-being, (E) life satisfaction, (F) positive emotion, (G) negative emotion.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Sensitivity analysis of the correlation between mobile phone addiction and (A) alexithymia, (B) attachment anxiety, (C) attachment avoidance, (D) subjective well-being, (E) life satisfaction, (F) positive emotion, (G) negative emotion. Reproduced with permission from Stata 16.0.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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