Childhood neglect influences smartphone addiction among college students: The mediating role of self-esteem

This study assessed the relationships among childhood neglect, self-esteem, and smartphone addiction in a cohort of 531 college students. Employing structural equation modeling alongside the bootstrapping technique, I discovered that childhood neglect influenced smartphone addiction both directly and indirectly, with self-esteem acting as a mediator of this relationship. The analysis demonstrated correlations between every facet of childhood neglect and both self-esteem and smartphone addiction. Furthermore, I identified a significant association between self-esteem and smartphone addiction. The results indicated that self-esteem served as a partial mediator in the nexus between childhood neglect and smartphone addiction, accounting for 56.34% of the overall effect. Implications of the findings are discussed.