IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ariqol/v20y2025i4d10.1007_s11482-025-10476-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Fangfang Pang

    (China Fire and Rescue Institute)

  • Shuxian Wang

    (China Fire and Rescue Institute)

  • Hao Dan

    (China Fire and Rescue Institute)

  • Ting Su

    (Hubei University of Science and Technology)

  • Xiaoli Yang

    (Hunan University of Science & Technology)

  • Haiyan Xing

    (China Fire and Rescue Institute)

  • Chen Xu

    (China Fire and Rescue Institute)

  • Zhiwei Zhou

    (University of Southampton)

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 (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.

Suggested Citation

  • Fangfang Pang & Shuxian Wang & Hao Dan & Ting Su & Xiaoli Yang & Haiyan Xing & Chen Xu & Zhiwei Zhou, 2025. "How Meaning in Life and Affect Influence Problematic Smartphone Use in Firefighter Students: A Two-Wave Study," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1683-1701, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:20:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s11482-025-10476-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11482-025-10476-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:20:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s11482-025-10476-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.