With the popularization of smartphones and the improvement of network infrastructure, there are about 1.23 billion mobile internet users in China (QuestMobile, 2024). China’s mobile internet market maintains a strong growth momentum, and users’ dependence on mobile internet and usage frequency are increasing, leading to the undeniable problem of phubbing behavior. Phubbing refers to the phenomenon in social activities where people look at their phones while ignoring the environment and other people around them (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018). In some cases, phubbing behavior is a measure taken by individuals to avoid social interaction (Karadağ et al., 2015). This phenomenon is particularly evident on higher education campuses, as students are high-frequency users of smartphones and applications.

 

Phubbing may reduce opportunities for face-to-face communication; affect the development of social skills (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018); lead to mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression (Roberts & David, 2016); and cause relationships with family, friends, and classmates to become distant (Gong & Lei, 2019). The phenomenon of phubbing may exist among young people in China, and its psychological antecedents, consequences, and mechanisms of action deserve further research attention. By understanding these factors, we can discover effective strategies to address phubbing behavior and its negative impacts. Thus, this study explored the predictive factors of phubbing behavior among teenagers.

 

Stress is one of the main factors affecting an individual’s phubbing behavior from multiple perspectives (Liu et al., 2018). People under high stress may overuse their phones to cope with life challenges and relieve stress (Wang et al., 2015). Chinese teenagers grow up in a fiercely competitive environment where academic, interpersonal, and employment pressures remain high, and this might lead to more phubbing behavior to relieve pressure (Cha & Seo, 2018). Indeed, many studies have shown that addiction to mobile games, social media, or videos may cause students to temporarily forget about academic or life responsibilities, and there are multiple psychological and social factors behind this phenomenon (Xu et al., 2019). Teenagers who engage in excessive phubbing behavior cite various reasons for their use of smartphones, such as happiness, gaming, relieving stress, and online chatting (Lee et al., 2017). The relationship between stress and phubbing is a complex phenomenon involving multiple psychological mechanisms. The current research focused on how stress affects phubbing.

 

Research has shown that grit is a key psychological factor affecting addictive behavior (Borzikowsky & Bernhardt, 2018; Griffin et al., 2016). Although grit is not a completely new concept in psychology, it has received more attention and research in recent years. Grit involves the determination not to give up in the face of difficulties and challenges (Duckworth et al., 2007), making it a valuable quality that includes consistency of interest and perseverance in effort (Blalock et al., 2015). People with grit usually have strong self-control and can resist temptation, including the temptation toward excessive use of the internet (Borzikowsky & Bernhardt, 2018). This indicates that grit may be negatively correlated with phubbing behavior. A study in South Korea (Yoo & Choi, 2019) revealed a negative correlation between perseverance and cell phone addiction. Researchers have explained that this may be due to cell phone addiction being associated with a lack of patience (Yoo & Choi, 2019). People with grit are often able to adopt more proactive coping strategies when facing stress, which helps them reduce the negative effects of stress and solve problems more effectively (Marie et al., 2019). However, research on grit and phubbing is still limited. Therefore, we anticipated that grit would be negatively correlated with phubbing and that it would mediate the relationship between stress and phubbing.

 

In summary, previous studies have found that understanding and managing stress, as well as improving grit, are crucial for preventing and reducing problematic cell phone use (Disabato et al., 2019; Wolniewicz et al., 2020). However, it is currently unclear whether levels of stress and grit can also predict phubbing behavior. More research is needed to clarify these relationships and explore how the two dimensions of grit affect phubbing behavior (Bowman et al., 2015). For instance, Datu et al. (2016) suggested that in collectivist cultures, there may be significant differences between the two dimensions of grit and their predictive effects on psychological and educational outcomes. Bowman et al. (2015) found differences in the effects of the two dimensions of grit, suggesting that persistent effort is more important compared to consistency of interest in regard to preventing excessive social media use, as perseverance in effort can help individuals reduce their dependence on social media and may promote healthier social media usage habits. These results indicate that in order to better grasp the role of grit, it is necessary to conduct an independent analysis of the two dimensions. However, most previous studies focused only on the total score for grit (Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014). Therefore, we independently analyzed the two dimensions of grit to supplement previous findings. We formed the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Stress will be negatively correlated with grit and positively correlated with phubbing behavior.

Hypothesis 2: Grit will be negatively correlated with phubbing behavior.

Hypothesis 3: Grit will play a mediating role in the relationship between stress and phubbing behavior.

Hypothesis 4: Consistency of interest and perseverance of effort will both play a mediating role in the relationship between stress and phubbing behavior.

 

The research model is presented in Figure 1.

We used cluster sampling and distributed 500 questionnaires to secondary school students and college students at three vocational colleges in Jiangsu Province, China. After analysis, 487 valid surveys were returned by 305 boys and 182 girls (M_age = 16.79 years, SD = 2.54, range = 15–19).

Participants who agreed to take part in the research completed a survey on Questionnaire Star (https://www.wjx.cn/), measuring stress, grit, and phubbing. One week prior to the survey distribution, all measurement tools in this study were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Tianjin Normal University. The parents of the participants signed informed consent forms.

Stress was measured using the Stress Scale for College Students (Li & Kam, 2002), which comprises three dimensions: daily stress (16 items), learning annoyance (10 items), and negative life events (four items). Sample items for daily stress include “Longing for true love but not getting it” and “Low learning efficiency.” Sample items for learning annoyance include “Exam stress” and “Low learning efficiency.” Sample items for negative life events include “Accused in public by others” and “Quarreling with others over trivial matters in daily life.” Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = no stress to 4 = severe stress. Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .92.

 

The Short Grit Scale, developed by Duckworth et al. (2007) and revised into Chinese by Liang et al. (2016), consists of eight items divided evenly across two factors: consistency of interest and perseverance of effort. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = very inconsistent to 5 = very consistent. Sample items include “I find it difficult to maintain my focus on a plan that will take a few months to complete” (consistency of interest) and “Setbacks will not discourage me” (perseverance of effort). The higher the total score, the greater the grit. Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .80.

 

Phubbing was measured using the Chinese version (Lu & Li, 2020) of the Generic Scale of Phubbing (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2016), which consists of 15 items divided across four dimensions: problem acknowledgment (three items), interpersonal conflict (four items), self-isolation (four items), and nomophobia (four items). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Sample items include “I spend more time playing with my phone than I usually expect” (problem acknowledgment), “If someone asks me to put down my phone and talk to them, I will feel very angry” (interpersonal conflict), “I prefer spending more time playing with my phone than talking to others” (self-isolation), and “If I can’t check my phone at all times, I’m worried that I might miss important things” (nomophobia). Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .84.

We used SPSS 22.0 for descriptive, correlation, and regression analyses, and adopted Model 4 of the SPSS PROCESS macro version 3.5 (Hayes, 2017) for mediating effects analysis. We utilized percentile bootstrapping to test the significance of the mediating effects by calculating 95% confidence intervals with 5,000 resamples.

The descriptive statistics of all variables are shown in Table 1.

To assess the mediating effect of grit on the relationship between stress and phubbing, we used Model 4 of the PROCESS macro 3.5. As can be seen in Table 3, stress had a significant impact on phubbing and grit, and grit had a significant impact on phubbing. The path of stress → grit → phubbing was significant, suggesting that grit partially mediated the relationship between stress and phubbing behavior (see Tables 3 and 4).

Each factor of grit played a separate mediating role, as shown in Table 4. Stress positively predicted both phubbing and consistency of interest, and consistency of interest positively predicted phubbing. Further, the path of stress → consistency of interest → phubbing was significant, indicating that consistency of interest had a mediating effect on the relationship between stress and phubbing.

 

Furthermore, stress positively predicted phubbing (see Table 4). Stress had a significant impact on perseverance of effort, and perseverance of effort had a significant impact on phubbing. Further, the path of stress → perseverance of effort → phubbing was significant, suggesting that perseverance of effort also mediated the relationship between stress and phubbing.

First, this study found that stress significantly predicted the phubbing behavior of Chinese teenagers, which supports the results of other quantitative studies on the link between stress and smartphone or internet addiction (e.g., Liu et al., 2018; Yoo & Choi, 2019). Moreover, this study extends prior research by showing that grit partially mediated the relationship between stress and phubbing. As stress increases, people are more likely to exhibit some kind of phubbing behavior. (Liu et al., 2018). Specifically, when under high levels of stress, people tend to use digital devices, such as smartphones, to relieve their stress (Yoo & Choi, 2019). The results we have obtained in this study enhance understanding of human behavior patterns under stress and provide scientific evidence for mental health interventions and social skills training.

 

Second, we found that the grit of Chinese teenagers was negatively correlated with their phubbing behavior, and that grit partially mediated the relationship between stress and phubbing behavior. The results of correlational and mediation analyses indicated that the lower the respondent’s grit, the more frequent was their phubbing behavior. In addition, the two factors of grit (consistency of interest and persistence of effort) were negatively correlated with phubbing. Previous research has shown negative correlations between grit and maladaptive behaviors, such as juvenile delinquency, drug use disorders, and online gaming addiction (Borzikowsky & Bernhardt, 2018). Guerrero et al. (2016) stated that grit is reflected in an individual’s ability to focus on long-term goals, even in the face of setbacks in the short term, and to maintain a goal orientation and foresight. Therefore, grit may reduce adventurous and maladaptive behavior. Our findings support the conclusion drawn in previous studies that lower grit is associated with a higher possibility of phubbing. Our results are also consistent with the stress-buffering hypothesis (Carver & Vargas, 2011), which suggests that grit, as a psychological trait, can mediate the impact of stress on maladaptive behavior through various mechanisms, thereby helping individuals maintain a healthy psychological state and behavioral pattern when facing stress (Carter, 2018).

 

Third, the mediating role of grit we observed indicates that as Chinese teenagers’ stress increased, their grit reduced, leading to an increase in phubbing behavior. In short, when a person is under high stress, their grit may decrease, making them more likely to succumb to stress and exhibit phubbing behavior (Yoo & Choi, 2019). Yoo and Choi (2019) explored how grit affects college students’ dependence on smartphones when facing academic stress. Our research builds on theirs because we also examined how grit is related to negative life events and daily stressors. In addition, our study focused on Chinese teenagers, who are more prone to addiction than other age groups (Haug et al., 2015). According to Yoo and Choi, the stress of Chinese teenagers not only directly leads to phubbing behavior, but also reduces grit, which may indirectly lead to an increase in phubbing. This result indicates that reducing stress can be a protective factor against phubbing behavior, and that effective stress-management techniques, such as meditation, exercise, adequate rest, and social activities, can help people reduce their dependence on electronic devices. Enhancing grit may also reduce phubbing behavior, as it can help people maintain self-control when faced with temptations, such as temporarily putting down their phone (Marie et al., 2019).

 

Finally, we separately analyzed the two factors of grit and found that they partially mediated the relationship between stress and phubbing. Scholars have argued that the two factors of grit may lead to different results (Disabato et al., 2019). However, we found that consistency of interest and persistence of effort were both negatively correlated with phubbing behavior, and played a mediating role in the relationship between stress and phubbing behavior. This means that teenagers’ stress can reduce their sustained enthusiasm and pursuit of long-term goals, which may cause excessive phubbing. Therefore, having a high level of grit may contribute to blocking the stress pathway that leads to phubbing behavior.

 

This study has some limitations. First, we collected data using an online survey, which assumes that the respondents will provide truthful answers to all questions. However, several factors may have influenced their responses, such as social desirability bias. This could be addressed in future research by using alternative data-collection approaches. Second, our use of a cross-sectional research design means we could not determine causal relationships. Future research could further validate and deepen these findings through collecting longitudinal or experimental data. Third, some other studies have found that fear of missing out (Franchina et al., 2018) and resilience (Park & Kwon, 2019) affect phubbing behavior. Therefore, these factors could be investigated in future research.

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

 

Carter, J. S. (2018). Stress and self-esteem in adolescence predict physical activity and sedentary behavior in adulthood. Mental Health and Physical Activity, 14, 90–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2018.02.005

 

Carver, C. S., & Vargas, S. (2011). Stress, coping, and health. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 163–188). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195342819.013.0008

 

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, 5(1), Article 2055102918755046. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102918755046

 

Chotpitayasunondh, V., & Douglas, K. M. (2016). How “phubbing” becomes the norm: The antecedents and consequences of snubbing via smartphone. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 9–18.

 

Chotpitayasunondh, V., & Douglas, K. M. (2018). The effects of “phubbing” on social interaction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 48(6), 304–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12506

 

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.

 

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., 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

 

Eskreis-Winkler, L., Shulman, E. P., Beal, S. A., & Duckworth, A. L. (2014). The grit effect: Predicting retention in the military, the workplace, school and marriage. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 36.

 

Franchina, V., Vanden Abeele, M., Van Rooij, A. J., Lo Coco, G., & De Marez, L. (2018). Fear of missing out as a predictor of problematic social media use and phubbing behavior among Flemish adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(10), Article 2319. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102319

 

Gong, Y., & Lei, K. (2019). A structural equation model study on the influence of phubbing on life satisfaction among teenagers groups [In Chinese]. Journal of Natural Science of Hunan Normal University, 4, 89–94.

 

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

 

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.

 

Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. The Guilford Press.

 

Karadağ, E., Tosuntaş, Ş. B., Erzen, E., Duru, P., Bostan, N., Şahin, B. M., Çulha, İ., & Babadağ, B. (2015). Determinants of phubbing, which is the sum of many virtual addictions: A structural equation model. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4(2), 60–74. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.4.2015.005

 

Lee, H., Kim, J. W., & Choi, T. Y. (2017). Risk factors for smartphone addiction in Korean adolescents: Smartphone use patterns [In Korean]. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 32(10), 1674–1679.

 

Li, H., & Kam, W.-B. (2002). Development of the Stress Scale for College Students [In Chinese]. Chinese Journal of Applied Psychology, 1, 27–32.

 

Liang, W., Wang, D., Zhang, X., & Si, G. (2016). An examination of the reliability and validity of the Short Grit Scale among Chinese professional athletes and college student athletes [In Chinese]. Chinese Journal of Sports Medicine, 11, 1031–1037. https://doi.org/10.16038/j.1000-6710.2016.11.008

 

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

 

Lu, Z., & Li, Z. (2020). Revision of the Chinese version of the Generic Scale of Phubbing [In Chinese]. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 28(1), 34–37 + 41.

 

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

 

Park, H.-K., & Kwon, J.-H. (2019). The effects of college students’ life stress on smartphone addiction: The mediating effects of resilience [In Korean]. The Korean Journal of Human Development, 26(2), 131–148.

 

QuestMobile. (2024, May 7). Spring report on China mobile internet in 2024 [In Chinese].

 

Roberts, J. A., & David, M. E. (2016). My life has become a major distraction from my cell phone: Partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction among romantic partners. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 134–141.

 

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.

 

Wolniewicz, C. A., Rozgonjuk, D., & Elhai, J. D. (2020). Boredom proneness and fear of missing out mediate relations between depression and anxiety with problematic smartphone use. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2(1), 61–70. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.159

 

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. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2018.1488967

 

Yoo, K., & Choi, Y. (2019). Effects of academic stress on smartphone addiction in university students: The mediating effect of grit [In Korean]. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 10(5), 635–650.