| In the current Internet era,the connection between people and digital media is getting closer and closer.The digital media influences people’s daily life.In China,the number of teenage Internet users has reached 183 million,accounting for 17.7% of the total number of Internet users.The media use time is also increasing year by year.Some studies showed that the growth of media multitasking was precisely due to the growth of media use time.Media multitasking is defined as individuals engaging in two or more different activities simultaneously in their daily lives and learning activities,at least one of which involves the use of media.In daily life,when students do homework,it is usually accompanied by watching TV,listening to music,and texting.Such behavior is becoming increasingly common and has attracted the attention of many researchers.Related studies have shown that excessive media multitasking negatively affected college students’ emotional well-being and caused more social anxiety in individuals.However,the relationship between media multitasking and social anxiety in adolescent groups is unclear.Moreover,although previous studies have shown that media multitasking was significantly and positively related to social anxiety,the underlying mechanism of action is unclear,and the relationship might be moderated by other variables.It was shown that mindful attentional awareness partially mediated the relationship between media multitasking and distractibility,and that the level of self-control was correlated with the degree of media multitasking.Thus,it was clear that mindful attentional awareness and self-control were closely related to media multitasking.High school students are at a critical stage of physical and psychological development.Social anxiety has profound effects on their interpersonal skills,academic behavior,and other aspects of their lives,and might even hinder their future development.Therefore,the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between high school students’ media multitasking behaviors and their social anxiety,as well as to examine the mediating role of mindful attentional awareness and self-control in the relationship between media multitasking and social anxiety.In the current study,880 students from a high school in Hebei and Sichuan were selected as subjects,with an average age of 15 years and six months,including 417 male and 393 female students.The Chinese Adolescent Media Multitasking Scale,the Positive Attention Awareness Scale,the Self-Control Scale,and the Adolescent Social Anxiety Scale were used as measurement instruments to examine the relationships between adolescent media multitasking,positive attention awareness,self-control and social anxiety,and the mediating role of positive attention awareness and self-control in the relationship between adolescent media multitasking and social anxiety.The results of the study were as follows:(1)High school students’ media multitasking behaviors significantly and positively predicted social anxiety,that is,higher level of media multitasking was associated with higher levels of social anxiety.(2)High school students’ level of mindful attentional awareness significantly and negatively predicted social anxiety,that is,the higher the level of mindful attentional awareness,the lower the level of social anxiety.(3)There was a significant negative correlation between the level of self-control and social anxiety of high school students,that is,the higher the level of self-control,the lower the level of social anxiety.(4)The effect of media multitasking behavior on social anxiety in high school students was mediated by the chain of mindful attentional awareness and self-control.The results of the study enlighten that properly guiding for the adolescents in media multitasking and improving high school students’ awareness of positive attention and self-control can effectively reduce the probability of social anxiety in high school students. |
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