Emotion regulation strategies as predictors of internet addiction and smartphone addiction in adolescents

Abstract

The current study aims to examine the strategies of adolescents' emotion regulation to predict the Internet addiction and the smartphone addiction. The study participants included totally 262 high school students with 132 females (50.4%) and 130 (49.6%) males. Students' ages ranged between 14 and 19 with average age being 16.57, SD = 1.13. Emotion Regulation Scale for Adolescents, Young Internet Addiction Test-Brief Form, Smartphone Addiction Scale-Brief Form, and Personal Information Form were used as instruments to collect data in the current research. Based on the research findings, it was seen that external-dysfunctional emotion regulation, internal-dysfunctional emotion regulation, and internal-functional emotion regulation significantly predicted both the Internet addiction and the smartphone addiction; however, external-functional emotion regulation predict neither of the variables on significant levels. Emotion regulation strategies overall explained the 38% of variance in the Internet addiction and 19% of that in the smartphone addiction. The current research findings were discussed and interpreted, and suggestions were included for relevant researchers.