Effectiveness of brief online mindfulness-based intervention on different types of mobile phone addiction: mechanisms of influence of trait mindfulness
Zhiyu Zhang, Lei Wu, Chuxi Lu, T. Guan
Frontiers in Psychology February 17, 2025 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1400327 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | College students |
| Intervention | Brief online mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) |
| Topics | Addiction Meditation |
| Key findings | The experimental group receiving a brief online mindfulness-based intervention showed significant decreases in mobile social networking, mobile game, mobile information acquisition, and mobile short-form video addiction from pre-test to post-test. Trait mindfulness negatively predicted all four addiction types, indicating that higher trait mindfulness was associated with lower mobile phone addiction. |
Abstract
Introduction: It is common for college students to suffer from mobile phone addiction, which can seriously affect their physical and mental health. The current study looked at the impact of a brief online mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) on mobile phone addiction to address this problem. The mechanisms behind the influence of trait mindfulness (TM) on this process were also investigated in the current study.
Methods: Subjects were split into two groups for a randomized controlled trial: an experimental group and a control group. During brief online MBI, online assessments of mobile social networking addiction (MSNA), mobile game addiction (MGA), mobile information acquisition addiction (MIAA), and mobile short-form video addiction (MSVA) as well as TM were completed. The present study examined the effectiveness of the brief online MBI with a two-factor repeated measures ANOVA and explored the effects of TM on the four types of mobile phone addiction with hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) after a brief online MBI.
Results: Results revealed that the experimental group receiving brief online MBI showed a significant decrease in MSNA, MGA, MIAA, and MSVA at the post-test level compared to the pre-test. TM negatively predicted MSNA, MGA, MIAA, and MSVA.
Discussion: The present study found that the brief online mindfulness-based intervention can effectively reduce four types of mobile phone addiction. In addition, the present study revealed that as the levels of TM increased, all four types of mobile phone addiction decreased.
Comparable studies
Other randomized controlled trials on addiction, most cited first.
Citations in the library
Cited by 4
- Mindfulness-based and mindfulness-informed interventions for internet use disorders in adolescents and young adults: A three-level random-effects meta-analysis Journal of Behavioral Addictions September 18, 2026
- The relationship between trait mindfulness and problematic smartphone use: the serial mediation role of difficulties with emotion regulation and fear of missing out. Psychology, Health & Medicine September 8, 2026
- AI-Supported Mindfulness Interventions Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics March 26, 2026
- Mindfulness and problematic smartphone use: indirect and conditional associations via self-regulated learning and digital detox. BMC Psychology October 10, 2025
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