Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of grit on the relationship between stress and smartphone addiction among adolescents. Participants were 605 Korean students from age 12 to 16 (mean age = 13.97 years). Stress was assessed using the Daily Hassles Scales for Children in Korea developed by Han and Yoo (Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association, 33(4), 49-64, 1995). Grit was measured by the Korean translated version of the Original Grit Scale (Duckworth et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101, 2007; Park et al., Current Psychology, 39(2), 413-418, 2020), and smartphone addiction was measured by using the Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale for Youth developed by the National Information Society Agency (2011). The mediating effect was analyzed by using PROCESS macro version 3.5, and bootstrapping was conducted to test the significance of the mediating effect. The results showed that adolescent's stress and grit significantly influenced smartphone addiction. Also, grit partially mediated the relationship between stress and smartphone addiction. This means that high levels of stress reduced grit, which in turn increased smartphone addiction proneness among adolescents. In addition, two factors of grit (consistency of interest and perseverance of effort) both mediated the association between stress and smartphone addiction. The current study is meaningful in that it is the first study to empirically investigate adolescent's grit in relation to stress and smartphone addiction. Moreover, this study can provide useful information about prevention and intervention strategies for smartphone addiction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy issues but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
An, T. Y., Park, S. D., & Yang, S. (2020). How does grit develop? A focus on the relationship between perceived parents failure mindset, parental academic expectation, and failure tolerance among university students. The Korean Journal of Developmental Psychology, 33(2), 103–121. https://doi.org/10.35574/KJDP.2020.6.33.2.103
Blalock, D. V., Young, K. C., & Kleiman, E. M. (2015). Stability amidst turmoil: Grit buffers the effects of negative life events on suicidal ideation. Psychiatry Research, 228(3), 781–784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2015.04.041
Borzikowsky, C., & Bernhardt, F. (2018). Lost in virtual gaming worlds: Grit and its prognostic value for online game addiction. The American Journal on Addictions, 27(5), 433–438. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajad.12762
Bowman, N. A., Hill, P. L., Denson, N., & Bronkema, R. (2015). Keep on truckin’ or stay the course? Exploring grit dimensions as differential predictors of educational achievement, satisfaction, and intentions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(6), 639–645. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550615574300
Cha, S. S., & Seo, B.-K. (2018). Smartphone use and smartphone addiction in middle school students in Korea: Prevalence, social networking service, and game use. Health Psychology Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102918755046
Chambers, R. A., Taylor, J. R., & Potenza, M. N. (2003). Developmental neurocircuitry of motivation in adolescence: A critical period of addiction vulnerability. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(6), 1041–1052. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.160.6.1041
Datu, J. A. D., Valdez, J. P. M., & King, R. B. (2016). Perseverance counts but consistency does not! Validating the short grit scale in a collectivist setting. Current Psychology, 35(1), 121–130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-015-9374-2
Disabato, D. J., Goodman, F. R., & Kashdan, T. B. (2019). Is grit relevant to well-being and strengths? Evidence across the globe for separating perseverance of effort and consistency of interests. Journal of Personality, 87(2), 194–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12382
Duckworth, A. L., Kirby, T. A., Tsukayama, E., Berstein, H., & Ericsson, K. A. (2011). Deliberate practice spells success: Why grittier competitors triumph at the National Spelling Bee. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(2), 174–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610385872
Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087–1101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087
Duke, É., & Montag, C. (2017). Smartphone addiction, daily interruptions and self-reported productivity. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 6, 90–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2017.07.002
Eskreis-Winkler, L., Duckworth, A. L., Shulman, E. P., & Beal, S. (2014). The grit effect: Predicting retention in the military, the workplace, school and marriage. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(36), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00036
Griffin, M. L., McDermott, K. A., McHugh, R. K., Fitzmaurice, G. M., & Weiss, R. D. (2016). Grit in patients with substance use disorders. The American Journal on Addictions, 25(8), 652–658. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajad.12460
Guerrero, L. R., Dudovitz, R., Chung, P. J., Dosanjh, K. K., & Wong, M. D. (2016). Grit: A potential protective factor against substance use and other risk behaviors among Latino adolescents. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3), 275–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2015.12.016
Han, M. H., & Yoo, A. J. (1995). Development of daily hassles scale for children in Korea. Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association, 33(4), 49–64.
Haug, S., Castro, R. P., Kwon, M., Filler, A., Kowatsch, T., & Schaub, M. P. (2015). Smartphone use and smartphone addiction among young people in Switzerland. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4(4), 299–307. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.4.2015.037
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press.
Jo, H. S., Na, E., & Kim, D. J. (2018). The relationship between smartphone addiction predisposition and impulsivity among Korean smartphone users. Addiction Research & Theory, 26(1), 77–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2017.1312356
Jung, Y. A., Oh, M. S., & Kim, H. S. (2020). The relationship between occupational stress and burnout among firefighters: Mediating of grit. Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 29(2), 96–105. https://doi.org/10.12934/jkpmhn.2020.29.2.96
Kim, I. O., & Shin, S. H. (2016). Effects of academic stress in middle school students on smartphone addiction: Moderating effect of self-esteem and self-control. Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 25(3), 262–271.
Kim, S. E., Kim, J. W., & Jee, Y. S. (2015). Relationship between smartphone addiction and physical activity in Chinese international students in Korea. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4(3), 200–205. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.4.2015.028
Knauft, K., Ortiz, S., Velkoff, E., Smith, A., & Kalia, V. (2019). Keep calm and carry on? Grit buffers against disordered eating unless expressive suppression is used to regulate emotions. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 38(4), 321–342. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2019.38.4.321
Lee, H., Kim, J. W., & Choi, T. Y. (2017). Risk factors for smartphone addiction in Korean adolescents: Smartphone use patterns. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 32(10), 1674–1679.
Lee, S. R., & Sohn, Y. W. (2013). What are the strong predictors of academic achievement? - Deliberate practice and Grit. The Korean Journal of School Psychology, 10(3), 349–366.
Lin, Y. H., Chiang, C. L., Lin, P. H., Chang, L. R., Ko, C. H., Lee, Y. H., & Lin, S. H. (2016). Proposed diagnostic criteria for smartphone addiction. PLoS One, 11(11), e0163010. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0163010
Liu, Q. Q., Zhang, D. J., Yang, X. J., Zhang, C. Y., Fan, C. Y., & Zhou, Z. K. (2018). Perceived stress and mobile phone addiction in Chinese adolescents: A moderated mediation model. Computers in Human Behavior, 87, 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.06.006
Marie, L., Taylor, S. E., Basu, N., Fadoir, N. A., Schuler, K., McKelvey, D., & Smith, P. N. (2019). The protective effects of grit on suicidal ideation in individuals with trauma and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 75(9), 1701–1714. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22803
National Information Society Agency. (2011). Development of Korean Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale For Youth and Adults (NIA IV-PER-11051).
Panova, T., & Lleras, A. (2016). Avoidance or boredom: Negative mental health outcomes associated with use of Information and Communication Technologies depend on users’ motivations. Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 249–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.062
Park, D., Yu, A., Baelen, R. N., Tsukayama, E., & Duckworth, A. L. (2018). Fostering grit: Perceived school goal-structure predicts growth in grit and grades. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 55, 120–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2018.09.007
Park, H., & Kwon, J. (2019). The effects of college students’ life stress on smartphone addiction: The mediating effects of resilience. The Korean Journal of the Human Development, 26(2), 131–148. https://doi.org/10.15284/kjhd.2019.26.2.131
Park, S., Kwak, K., & Kim, Y. (2020). Psychological variables related to grit among adolescents in South Korea: A longitudinal study from age 4 to 14. Current Psychology, 39(2), 413–418. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9947-y
Robertson-Kraft, C., & Duckworth, A. L. (2014). True grit: Trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals predicts effectiveness and retention among novice teachers. Teachers College Record (1970), 116(3), 1–24.
Sohn, S., Rees, P., Wildridge, B., Kalk, N. J., & Carter, B. (2019). Prevalence of problematic smartphone usage and associated mental health outcomes amongst children and young people: A systematic review, meta-analysis and GRADE of the evidence. BMC Psychiatry, 19(356), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-019-2350-x
Thomée, S. (2018). Mobile phone use and mental health. A review of the research that takes a psychological perspective on exposure. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(2692), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122692
Wang, J. L., Wang, H. Z., Gaskin, J., & Wang, L. H. (2015). The role of stress and motivation in problematic smartphone use among college students. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 181–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.07.005
Xu, T. T., Wang, H. Z., Fonseca, W., Zimmerman, M. A., Rost, D. H., Gaskin, J., & Wang, J. L. (2019). The relationship between academic stress and adolescents’ problematic smartphone usage. Addiction Research & Theory, 27(2), 162–169.
Yoo, K., & Choi, Y. (2019). Effects of academic stress on smartphone addiction in University Students: Grit’s mediation effect. The Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 10(5), 635–650. https://doi.org/10.22143/HSS21.10.5.45
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, C., Kwak, K. & Kim, Y. The relationship between stress and smartphone addiction among adolescents: the mediating effect of grit. Curr Psychol 42, 8451–8459 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03367-6
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03367-6