Configuration analysis of mobile phone addiction among college students: findings from fsQCA method

• Published in: Disability and rehabilitation: Assistive technology p. 1
• Main Authors: Chen, Jian, Chen, Guomin, Wang, Xian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 20.08.2025
• Subjects: configuration analysis; College students; antecedent conditions; fsQCA method; mobile phone addiction
• ISSN: 1748-3115
• DOI: 10.1080/17483107.2025.2548858

Mobile phone addiction among college students is currently a common phenomenon and has many negative impacts on the students, such as decreased vision and low sleep quality. Since the existing research on this phenomenon has analyzed the net effects of causes on the result, this paper introduces the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to explore the relationship between five antecedent conditions (self-control, self-esteem, loneliness, significant others, and school management) and college students' mobile phone addiction from the perspective of configuration. Taking college students as research subjects, and a questionnaire was used for data collection. Then the FSQCA method was used to obtain configuration results and conduct configuration analysis. The results show that a single condition is not necessary for this phenomenon. On the contrary, three configurations could bring about the addiction. The first configuration includes self-esteem, loneliness, and significant others. The second configuration contains self-control, self-esteem, loneliness, and school management. The third configuration comprises self-esteem and loneliness. The findings of this article can effectively explain the reasons of mobile phone addiction among college students and provide references for alleviating and eliminating it.