How Meaning in Life and Affect Influence Problematic Smartphone Use in Firefighter Students: A Two-Wave Study

IF 2.5 3区社会学 Q1 SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY

Applied Research in Quality of Life Pub Date : 2025-08-16 DOI:10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4

Fangfang Pang, Shuxian Wang, Hao Dan, Ting Su, Xiaoli Yang, Haiyan Xing, Chen Xu, Zhiwei Zhou

{"title":"How Meaning in Life and Affect Influence Problematic Smartphone Use in Firefighter Students: A Two-Wave Study","authors":"Fangfang Pang, Shuxian Wang, Hao Dan, Ting Su, Xiaoli Yang, Haiyan Xing, Chen Xu, Zhiwei Zhou","doi":"10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>Excessive mobile phone use has raised concerns about addiction among college students, yet research specifically addressing firefighter students remains limited. This study investigates how meaning in life (MIL) is associated with problematic smartphone use (PSU) in firefighter students, with positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) as mediators. Data from 606 participants (Mage = 22.73; SD = 2.67, 97% male) were collected across two waves, assessing MIL, PA, NA, and PSU. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with item parceling revealed that both PA (B = − 0.09, SE = 0.04, p = .042, 95% CI [-0.176, − 0.003]) and NA (B = − 0.05, SE = 0.01, p = .001, 95% CI [-0.073, − 0.017]) significantly mediate the MIL-PSU relationship. Specifically, higher MIL correlates with reduced PSU, mediated by increased PA and decreased NA. These results highlight the critical role of emotional states in the MIL-PSU link, offering insights for intervention strategies that focus on enhancing MIL and emotion to curb PSU in firefighter students. Additionally, the insignificant direct association between T1-MIL and T2-PSU among students with prior firefighting experience, in the absence of mediation by PA/NA, suggests the important and complex role of previous firefighting experience, which should be further explored when developing interventions tailored to firefighter students with and without such experience.</div>","PeriodicalId":51483,"journal":{"name":"Applied Research in Quality of Life","volume":"20 4","pages":"1683 - 1701"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Applied Research in Quality of Life","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Excessive mobile phone use has raised concerns about addiction among college students, yet research specifically addressing firefighter students remains limited. This study investigates how meaning in life (MIL) is associated with problematic smartphone use (PSU) in firefighter students, with positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) as mediators. Data from 606 participants (M_age = 22.73; SD = 2.67, 97% male) were collected across two waves, assessing MIL, PA, NA, and PSU. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with item parceling revealed that both PA (B = − 0.09, SE = 0.04, p = .042, 95% CI [-0.176, − 0.003]) and NA (B = − 0.05, SE = 0.01, p = .001, 95% CI [-0.073, − 0.017]) significantly mediate the MIL-PSU relationship. Specifically, higher MIL correlates with reduced PSU, mediated by increased PA and decreased NA. These results highlight the critical role of emotional states in the MIL-PSU link, offering insights for intervention strategies that focus on enhancing MIL and emotion to curb PSU in firefighter students. Additionally, the insignificant direct association between T1-MIL and T2-PSU among students with prior firefighting experience, in the absence of mediation by PA/NA, suggests the important and complex role of previous firefighting experience, which should be further explored when developing interventions tailored to firefighter students with and without such experience.

查看原文本刊更多论文

生活意义和影响如何影响消防员学生的问题智能手机使用：一项两波研究

过度使用手机引起了大学生对手机成瘾的担忧，然而专门针对消防员学生的研究仍然有限。本研究以积极情绪（PA）和消极情绪（NA）为中介，探讨了消防员学生的生活意义（MIL）与智能手机使用问题（PSU）之间的关系。来自606名参与者（Mage = 22.73; SD = 2.67, 97%为男性）的数据分为两波收集，评估MIL、PA、NA和PSU。结构方程模型（SEM）与物品包装显示PA （B = - 0.09, SE = 0.04, p = 0.09）。042年,95% CI[-0.176−0.003])和NA (B =−0.05,SE = 0.01, p =。001, 95% CI[-0.073, - 0.017])显著介导MIL-PSU关系。具体来说，MIL升高与PSU降低相关，这是由PA升高和NA降低介导的。这些结果强调了情绪状态在MIL-PSU关联中的关键作用，为专注于提高MIL和情绪的干预策略提供了见解，以抑制消防员学生的PSU。此外，在没有PA/NA介导的情况下，有消防经验的学生的T1-MIL和T2-PSU之间的直接关联不显著，这表明有消防经验的学生的T1-MIL和T2-PSU具有重要而复杂的作用，在制定针对有或没有此类经验的消防员学生的干预措施时，应进一步探讨。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Applied Research in Quality of Life SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

6.40

自引率

11.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： The aim of this journal is to publish conceptual, methodological and empirical papers dealing with quality-of-life studies in the applied areas of the natural and social sciences. As the official journal of the ISQOLS, it is designed to attract papers that have direct implications for, or impact on practical applications of research on the quality-of-life. We welcome papers crafted from interdisciplinary, inter-professional and international perspectives. This research should guide decision making in a variety of professions, industries, nonprofit, and government sectors, including healthcare, travel and tourism, marketing, corporate management, community planning, social work, public administration, and human resource management. The goal is to help decision makers apply performance measures and outcome assessment techniques based on concepts such as well-being, human satisfaction, human development, happiness, wellness and quality-of-life. The Editorial Review Board is divided into specific sections indicating the broad scope of practice covered by the journal. The section editors are distinguished scholars from many countries across the globe.