The Mediating Role of Rumination in the Relationship Between Loneliness and Smartphone Addiction Among College Students

Objective This study examined the relationships between loneliness, rumination, and smartphone addiction among college students. Methods This cross-sectional study selected college students from multiple provinces and cities including Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, etc. The final analysis included 427 participants (117 boys and 310 girls) with a average age of 20.55 ± 1.58 years. Subjective data on loneliness, rumination, and smartphone addiction were collected and analyzed, with a mediation model being established. Results Bootstrap analysis with 5,000 resamples revealed significant mediation effects of rumination between loneliness and smartphone addiction (95% CI [0.109, 0.237]). Structural equation modeling demonstrated excellent model fit indices for the mediation hypothesis (χ²/df = 2.383, RMSEA = 0.057, CFI = 0.960). Conclusions Results indicate that rumination fully mediates the relationship between loneliness and smartphone addiction, suggesting that lonely college students' maladaptive repetitive thinking patterns constitute the primary pathway to compulsive smartphone use.