The Effect of Brief Mindfulness Meditation on Attention Networks in University Students with Problematic Short-Video Use

To examine the effects of brief mindfulness meditation on attention network function in university students with problematic short-video use, participants were screened using the SPAI and an adapted IAT and assigned to an intervention or control group. The intervention group received 4 weeks of brief mindfulness meditation, whereas the control group received no training. Both groups completed the Attention Network Test before and after the intervention. MANCOVA examined group differences in alerting, orienting, and executive control while controlling for baseline performance, age, and sex. Follow-up ANCOVAs were exploratory and Holm-adjusted. The overall multivariate group effect was not significant. Exploratory analyses showed no significant between-group differences in alerting or orienting, whereas the intervention group showed a significantly lower executive control effect than the control group after Holm adjustment. Descriptive RT and ACC patterns across the five ANT conditions did not indicate a consistent improvement in task performance. Taken together, brief mindfulness meditation did not produce an overall improvement in attention network function. However, exploratory findings suggest that it may be associated with a lower conflict-processing cost in executive control. This finding should be interpreted cautiously and requires further verification.