The association between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction: A three-level meta-analysis

Social anxiety is considered an important factor in the emergence of symptoms of mobile phone addiction. Although numerous studies have shown a significant positive correlation between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction, others confirm that there is non-prominent correlation between these two variables. Further, the magnitudes and directions of the association between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction in previous empirical studies are inconclusive. Based on the PRISMA method, a three-level meta-analytic model was applied to quantitatively synthesize relevant findings to obtain reliable estimates of effect sizes and conduct moderator analyses. In total, 82 studies involving 48,880 participants and 254 effect sizes were identified by a systematic literature search. A significant positive correlation was found between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction. Moreover, the present meta-analysis observed significant moderating effects of participants' age, culture, and publication year on the association between social anxiety and mobile phone addiction. This study suggests that social anxiety is a predictor of the development of mobile phone addiction in adolescents and adults. Social anxiety should be taken into account when designing prevention and intervention measures for mobile phone addiction in adolescents and adults.