| Over the past two decades,the rapid advancement of internet technology has significantly propelled the widespread adoption of mobile phones among adolescents.Excessive mobile phone use not only risks developing behaviors such as problematic mobile use,prohibited use,and mobile phone dependency but may also more profoundly affect adolescents’ academic achievement,physical development,interpersonal relationship,and psychological health.In addition,at society level,issues such as telecom fraud and cyberbullying involving adolescents,are all closely linked to the problematic mobile phone use among the youth.How to monitor adolescents’ mobile phone use has long been a challenge in the field of education.In early 2021,the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued a notice on "Strengthening the Management of Mobile Phones for Primary and Secondary School Students," and in October 2023,the State Council passed Decree No.766,the "Regulations on the Online Protection of Minors," which requires all kinds of schools to strictly implement management requirements that limit students’ mobile phones to campus and prohibit them from entering classrooms.Compared to the "prohibiting" and "blocking" approaches at the policy level,from the perspective of educators,how to scientifically and reasonably understand the issue of adolescents’ problematic mobile phone use is an important starting point for reducing and solving this problem.For schools and parents,there is a significant gap in explaining how to cultivate students’ autonomous learning and self-management while preventing and reducing the risks of problematic mobile phone use.For adolescents,their emotional responses and the development of emotional regulation is not only an important part of their socialization but also a key mechanism for their social adaptation.Functional contextualism posits that when individuals are insufficiently adapted to their current living environment,they exhibit problematic behaviors.Previous research has found that individuals with problematic mobile phone use have high levels of negative emotions and poor adaptiveness in emotional regulation strategies.Therefore,this paper suggests that problematic mobile phone use behavior among adolescents is very likely an important external manifestation of insufficient emotional regulation capabilities.Therefore,exploring the relationship between adolescents’ emotional regulation difficulties and problematic mobile phone use,and investigating the factors that affect the changes and development of both,can help predict and prevent the occurrence of problematic mobile phone use behavior.Compared to traditional cognitive-behavioral theories,mindfulness-based selfcompassion is more specific,experiential,and focused on acceptance.It encourages adolescents to engage in experiencing and understanding their own emotional responses,thereby gaining insight into their own feelings and enhancing emotional regulation adaptability,which in turn can reduce problematic mobile phone use.As a protective factor for adolescent mental health,the effect of self-compassion in buffering the impact of emotional regulation difficulties on problematic mobile phone use needs to be investigated.At the same time,in the school environment,the modification and application of self-compassion intervention programs for adolescent groups are also urgently to be explored.Therefore,this whole study has been divided into few sub-studies to realize our research purposes.In Study 1,we were trying to explore the characteristics of adolescents’Difficulties in Emotional Regulation(DERS)and problematic mobile phone use(PMPU),employing the methods of parametric estimation and network analysis at both the variable level and the observed indicator level.The results showed that the overall level of emotional regulation difficulties among middle school students was comparable to that of college students,but increases with academic level;Regarding to PMPU,the degree of PMPU also grow with academic level,and there was a significant positive correlation between gender,emotional regulation difficulties,and problematic mobile phone use.Network analysis results revealed that among adolescents with problematic mobile phone use,the withdrawal experience was the indicator that most closely associated with the dimension owing the highest centrality in the bridge network(the dimension of lack of emotional clarity).In Study 2,the methods of Cross-lagged Panel Analysis and Cross-lagged Panel Network Analysis were adopted to analysis the relationship between PMPU and DERS cross temporal comparison among adolescents.Cross-lagged results indicate that emotional regulation difficulties can significantly predict adolescents’ problematic mobile phone use,but the reverse is not true.Cross-lagged network analysis results show that the lack of emotional clarity in emotional regulation difficulties and withdrawal reactions in problematic mobile phone use have the greatest predictive power for the entire characteristic network.To predict and prevent the concerned issues,based on the I-PACE integrated model,Study 3 was used to explore the role of antecedent factors(relational framework)affecting the relationship between adolescents’ emotional regulation difficulties and problematic mobile phone use:reward/punishment sensitivity and parental emotional response.Study 3a results showed that individuals’ punishment sensitivity characteristics mainly affect problematic mobile phone use through emotional regulation difficulties and missed anxiety,but individuals’ reward sensitivity affects problematic mobile phone use directly and mainly through emotional regulation difficulties,not through the path of missed anxiety.Study 3b results showed that parents’ non-supportive emotional responses not only directly affect problematic mobile phone use but also affect it through the chain mediating path of emotional regulation difficulties and negative emotions.However,the impact of parents’supportive emotional responses on reducing problematic mobile phone use seldom occurred through reducing negative emotion levels.In Study 4,two behavioral experiments were utilized to explore adolescents’automatic(implicit attitudes on emotional regulation)and non-automatic(distress tolerance)emotional regulation characteristics,as well as their relationship with the scale scores of DERS and PMPU.Study 4a results displayed that adolescents in the high PMPU had a significantly higher implicit attitude tendency towards express the positive emotion and control the negative emotions.Study 4b results showed that adolescents in the low PMPU group had a significantly higher degree of distress tolerance than those in the high group,showing a more stable and adaptive emotional regulation.In Study 5,we examined the mediating role of self-compassion(SC)between adolescents’ DERS and PMPU,and explored the moderating effect of adolescents’existing emotional regulation relationship framework(implicit attitudes and distress tolerance)on this mediating model.Study 5a showed that self-compassion was a protective factor in the path from adolescents’ DERS to PMPU.Study 5b found that the implicit attitude of emotion regulation was the moderator of the path from DERS to PMPU,and Study 5c showed that both the distress tolerance and its product item with DERS were significantly predict the SC,but the moderated mediation effect was not significant.In Study 6,the author designed a self-compassion group program to fit high school settings,and to examine the effect in enhancing adolescents’ self-compassion,and reducing DERS and PMPU.The results showed that the SC group program can effectively enhance individuals’ conviction of their own experiences and viewpoints,and eliminate the degree of DERS and PMPU.This study comprehensively discussed the relationship between adolescents’DERS and PMPU at both the variable level and the characteristic level,clarified the antecedent factors affecting this relationship.Secondly,this study revealed the behavioral characteristics of emotional regulation among adolescent with different level of PMPU.Thirdly,it attempted to enhance adolescents’ self-regulatory development by improving their SC levels through experiential group interventions,thereby reducing DERS and PMPU,which has important educational implications for promoting the selfregulation development in the population of adolescents. |
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