ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Addictive Behaviors
From Attachment Anxiety to Short Video Addiction: The Roles of Attentional Control and Alexithymia
Provisionally accepted
- 1college of Humanities, Anhui Science and Technology University, Chuzhou, China
- 2The Second People's Hospital of Guizhou Province, Guiyang, China
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Short video addiction has become a widespread behavioral concern among young adults, yet its developmental mechanisms remain unclear. Guided by attachment theory, this study examined how attachment anxiety contributes to short video addiction through attentional control and alexithymia. Data from Chinese university students showed that attachment anxiety directly predicted higher levels of short video addiction and indirectly increased addiction through two distinct pathways: by reducing attentional control and by elevating alexithymia. Moreover, a chain pathway was identified, whereby impaired attentional control intensified alexithymia, which in turn led to stronger addictive tendencies. These findings provide an integrative framework linking early relational vulnerability to cognitive and emotional deficits, offering new insights for the prevention and intervention of short video addiction.
Keywords: alexithymia, Attachment anxiety, attentional control, Sequential mediation, Short Video Addiction
Received: 10 Dec 2025; Accepted: 26 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Su, Luo, Wang, Li and He. 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: Haodong Su
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