A digital Skinner box: The bidirectional longitudinal relationship between anxiety symptoms, delay of gratification, and short-form video addiction among Chinese adolescents
Li Y, Yang L, Lin S, Huang M, Wu T, Lin J, Chen J
Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence · 6 citations
How it was studied
- Design
- Cohort study (indexed by PubMed)
- Studied in
- People
- Main outcome
- Health markers and function
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Independent funding
- Government
- National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences
- Government
- National Social Science Fund of China
- Grants
- National Social Science Fund of China (24BSH119)
Based on 2 listed funder(s).
Publication
- Published
- 2025-11-17 · J Res Adolesc · vol. 35 · issue 4 · p. e70098
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Cited
- 7 citations · more than 99% of similar papers · 13.3× the field average
- Impact
- Top 10% most cited in its field
- References
- 50 works
- Access
- Free to read
- Research areas
- Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Child Development and Digital Technology · Media Influence and Health
- Keywords
- short-form video addiction, anxiety symptoms, delay of gratification, bidirectional relationship, mediation, adolescents, high school students, Chinese adolescents, digital addiction, self-control
- MeSH
- humans, longitudinal studies, adolescent behavior, behavior, addictive, anxiety, students, adolescent, china, female, male, delay discounting, surveys and questionnaires, internet addiction disorder, east asian people
7 authors
From CN
- Yongjian LiSouth China Normal University
- Lan YangSouth China Normal University
- Shuang LinGuangdong Polytechnic Normal University
- Manwen HuangSouth China Normal University
- Tingting Wu
- Jingying Lin
Abstract
Along with the rapid popularization of short-form video applications, adolescents' addiction to short-form videos has received increasing attention, but research on the bidirectional relationship between short-form video addiction (SFVA) and anxiety symptoms is limited. Therefore, the present study aimed to fill this gap by examining the interrelationship between these two variables and the potential mediating role of delayed gratification. This study surveyed 1143 Chinese high school students (50.04% male; Mage = 15.87, SD = 0.88 at time 1) across two waves of data collection spaced 6 months apart, measuring SFVA, delay of gratification, and anxiety symptoms at both time points. Using cross-lagged panel modeling, this study found that anxiety symptoms positively predicted subsequent SFVA, and SFVA positively predicted subsequent anxiety symptoms, suggesting a bidirectional relationship; furthermore, delay of gratification significantly mediated the relationship in both directions; specifically, anxiety symptoms increased the risk of SFVA by decreasing the ability to delay gratification, and vice versa. These findings emphasize the mediating role of delayed gratification, implying that interventions targeted at improving delayed gratification in adolescents may help to disrupt the vicious cycle of anxiety symptoms and SFVA.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher.
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