Effects of Children's Emotional Regulation on Internet Addiction during the Pandemic: The Role of Depression

Background: The negative effects of internet addiction (IA) on health have become prevalent among young people. The compensatory internet use model presents IA as a coping strategy that individuals use for lessening emotional distress. A growing number of researchers support this model, albeit the knowledge that addresses IA and emotional problems is limited, especially for children. Emotional regulation (ER), which enables individuals to experience and adjust the intensity and way of expressing emotions, has been viewed as a key predictor for behavior and internalizing problems. Two major strategies: cognitive reappraisal (CR) and emotional suppression (ES), are central to emotion regulation. Evidence indicates that maladaptive ER strategies are risks for internalizing problems, while adequate ER strategies help reduce internalizing problems. Nevertheless, the protective mechanism between ER strategies and IA and their relationship with depression has yet to be well-studied. To fill these knowledge gaps, the present study examined whether CR and ES directly improve IA, or indirectly impact IA through depression. Because CR has been identified as a positive ER strategy, while ES has a negative influence on depression, it is reasonable to assume that the paths whereby CR and ES impact IA could differ.

Methods: Two waves of data were collected from 824 students (52.55% females), with a mean age of 11 years, enrolled in 18 elementary schools in Taiwan. The duration between the two waves was six months; the dependent variable, IA, was measured during the pandemic period. We first conducted several multiple regression models of CR, ES, and IA, and then depression was entered into models to see the changes. All of the models were adjusted for gender and socioeconomic status. The bootstrapping method was finally applied to test the indirect effect.

Results: For the models of CR, ES, and IA, there was a positive association between ES and IA (B=.049, p< .01) and an insignificant negative association between CR and IA (B=-.015, p>.05). When depression was included in models, there was a negative association between CR and depression (B=-.088, p<.01), a positive association between ES and depression (B=.069, p<.001), and a positive association between depression and IA (B=.175, p<.01). Moreover, the association between ES and IA decreased from B=.049 (p< .01) to B=.037 (p<.05). The association between CR and IA also decreased. To test whether there were indirect effects from ES and CR to IA through depression, we tested the products of the coefficients via the bootstrapping method. The results showed a significant indirect effect from CR to IA (indirect effect=-.014, 95% BCI=-.027, -.005); however, the indirect effect from ES to IA was not significant (indirect effect=.012, 95% BCI=-.004, .022).

Conclusions and Implications: Given that students cannot always control stress factors, the findings highlight the importance of effective emotion regulation strategies. ES is a risk for both depression and IA. When working with children, routinely screening their ER strategies and providing needed training to enhance positive strategy could reduce depression and IA. Especially, intervention enhancing children CR can help reduce depression which, in turn, mitigates the IA.