Smartphone Addiction And College Students’ Creativity:The Mediating Role Of Cognitive Flexibility And Creative Self-efficacy

Although the wide use of smartphone has greatly facilitated people’s lives,there has been evidence showing that excessive use of smartphone may exert some adverse effects on users’ mental health and cognitive abilities.To demonstrate the potential effect of smartphone addiction on creativity as well as the underlying mechanisms,in a sample of college students the present study explored the relationship between smartphone addiction and creativity as well as the potential mediating roles of cognitive flexibility and creative self-efficacy.The results showed that:(1)smartphone addiction negatively predicted college students’ domain-general creativity(verbal creativity and figural creativity);(2)smartphone addiction negatively predicted college students’ domain-specific creativity(everyday creativity and academic creativity);(3)cognitive flexibility and creative self-efficacy serially mediated the relationship between smartphone addiction and college students’ domain-general creativity(verbal and figural creativity);(4)cognitive flexibility and creative self-efficacy serially mediated the relationship between smartphone addiction and college students’ everyday creativity and academic creativity.The findings of this study demonstrated the first evidence for the effect of smartphone addiction on creativity as well as the underlying mechanisms.It is expected that these findings may help to provide some guidance for college students to make proper use of their smartphones.