The correlation between mobile phone addiction and coping style among Chinese adolescents: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Mobile phone addiction has become a social problem that affects the healthy growth of adolescents, and it may be correlated with coping style. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mobile phone addiction and coping style and the influencing factors for adolescents. METHODS: A meta-analysis was conducted by searching China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WANFANG DATA and Chongqing VIP Information Co., Ltd. (VIP), PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and PsycINFO. Stata 16.0 was used to analyse the overall effect and test the moderating effect. RESULTS: Thirty-three studies were included, involving a total of 20,349 subjects. There was no significant correlation between adolescents’ mobile phone addiction and positive coping style (r = − 0.02, 95% CI = − 0.06 to 0.02, P > 0.05), but there was a moderate positive correlation between adolescents’ mobile phone addiction and negative coping style (r = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.26 to 0.36, P < 0.001). The moderating effect analysis showed that the effect of dissertations on mobile phone addiction and positive coping style among adolescents was significantly larger than that of journal articles. The Smartphone Addiction Scale for College Students (SAS-C) showed the largest effect on mobile phone addiction and positive coping style among adolescents. The time of publication significantly positively moderated the relationship between mobile phone addiction and negative coping style among adolescents. The Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ) showed the largest effect on adolescents’ mobile phone addiction and negative coping style. However, the correlation between adolescents’ mobile phone addiction and coping style was not affected by age or gender. CONCLUSIONS: There was a close relationship between mobile phone addiction and coping style among adolescents. In the future, longitudinal research should be carried out to better investigate the dynamic changes in the relationship between mobile phone addiction and coping style. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13034-021-00413-2.