ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1626175
This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Health in the Digital Age across Global CommunitiesView all 3 articles
The Relationship between Shyness, Loneliness, and Mobile Phone Addiction in Chinese university Students: A Cross-Lagged Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Kangwon National University, Samcheok, Gangwon, Republic of Korea
- 2SEGI University, Kota Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 3ChangJi College, Changji, Xinjiang, China
- 4Wuhan College, Wuhan, Hubei, China
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Purpose: Given the increasing rates of mobile phone addiction (MPA) among university students, identifying the psychological processes that contribute to this phenomenon is of vital importance for prevention and intervention. This research employs a longitudinal approach to empirically investigate the causal relationships between shyness, loneliness, and mobile phone addiction in college students.Methods: From July 2024 to March 2025, a nine-month, three-wave longitudinal survey was conducted among 404 Chinese college students using the Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, Emotional Versus Social Loneliness Scales, and the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale.(1) The synchronous and cross-lagged correlations among shyness, loneliness, and MPA were significant. (2) The direct predictive effect of shyness on MPA was found to be unstable, whereas MPA consistently predicted shyness. (3) Shyness consistently predicted loneliness, but the predictive effect of loneliness on shyness was found to be unstable. (4) Loneliness and MPA were found to be mutually predictive of each other. (5) T1 shyness significantly predicted T3 MPA through T2 loneliness; however, T3 MPA did not predict T3 shyness through T2 loneliness.Conclusions: Reducing shyness and loneliness can help alleviate MPA in college students, promoting their psychological and behavioral health. MPA may exacerbate loneliness and shyness, and early identification and intervention can help break this vicious cycle.
Keywords: shyness, Loneliness, Mobile phone addiction, longitudinal study, Chinese university students
Received: 10 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 BAI, Chen and Hu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
JING BAI, Kangwon National University, Samcheok, Gangwon, Republic of Korea
Qi Chen, SEGI University, Kota Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.