Psychology Commons^™

Mental Disengagement Mediates The Effect Of Rumination On Smartphone Use: A Latent Growth Curve Analysis, Shi Ann Shuna Khoo, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Rumination has consistently been found to predict excessive smartphone use. However, a paucity of research has examined the mechanism that underlies this relation. Drawing on relevant theoretical accounts, we examined whether specific coping functions that can be fulfilled through smartphones—i.e., mental disengagement, problem-focused, and socioemotional coping—mediate, in parallel, the positive link between rumination and smartphone use. Using latent growth curve and structural equation modeling (N = 217), we found that only mental disengagement fully mediated the link between rumination and the intercept (i.e., initial baseline levels) of smartphone use, which was objectively quantified using screen time monitoring applications installed on …