Metacognition and affect in relation to maladaptive mobile phone use among school children

 Original Article 


Metacognition and affect in relation to maladaptive mobile phone use among school children

 

Andree,1 Preeti Gupta,2 Sanjay Kumar Munda3 

1PhD Scholar, Department of Clinical Psychology, CIP, Ranchi 

2Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, CIP, Ranchi 

3Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, CIP, Ranchi 

Address for Correspondence: Email: preetiguptacp@gmail.com 


ABSTRACT 

Objective: Maladaptive mobile phone use is not uncommon among school children. Recent research has suggested that metacognitions and affect may play a role across the spectrum of addictive behaviours, including problematic use of technological devices. The goal of the present study was to study metacognition and affect among school children with maladaptive mobile phone use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The sample was collected online through google forms from 83 students of classes 7th-9th from two secondary co-ed schools of Ranchi, India. This was an explorative study and data was collected from the school session of 2020-2021. A total of 300 students from class 7th-9th were sent the online link, of which 122 gave consent to participate. Result: The results showed that 68% of school-going children from classes 7th -9th had maladaptive mobile phone use, of which 20% had problematic use and 47.5% had occasional problems. There was a significant relationship between metacognition and affect in children with maladaptive mobile  phone  use.  Positive affect  was significantly higher in males as compared to females with maladaptive mobile phone use. Metacognitive impairment positively correlates with negative affect in females with maladaptive mobile phone use compared to males. Conclusion: Although more research is needed to identify the underlying mechanisms, findings suggest a need to sensitize students and educators about the potential academic risks associated with  high-frequency mobile phone use. 

Keywords: Behaviour addiction, COVID-19 pandemic, metacognition, mobile phone use.  


INTRODUCTION 

Behavioural  addiction  or  psychological addiction  has  been  defined  as  “a  persistent behavioural pattern characterized by a desire or need to continue the activity which places it outside voluntary control; a tendency to increase the frequency or amount of the activity over time; psychological dependence on the pleasurable effects of the activity, and a detrimental effect on the individual and  society” (Grant et  al., 2010).  Problematic  smartphone  use  can  be defined as a heterogeneous and multidimensional phenomenon involving a pattern of dependency related to negative consequences (e.g., difficulty in focusing on daily activities or on an inter- personal encounter  due  to a constant need  to check smartphone notifications) (Choliz, 2012; Riley,  2014). Another  concept  known  as Nomophobia,  defined  as  the  “fear  of  being without your phone;” is an emerging problem of the modern era, as found in a study on mobile phone  dependence  among  students  of  Indian Medical College (Dixit et al., 2010). Children and  adolescents  are  in  a  development  stage wherein  they  are  vulnerable  to  problematic smartphone usage because of the presence  of stressful events and encounters that, together with poor emotion regulation skills, may lead adole- scents  to  relieve  their  negative  emotions  by excessively using smartphones.12,13 There is an established body  of  literature  in the  field  of behavioural  addictions and a  variety of beha- viours have been studied in ways analogous to substance use disorders. However, there is very little literature regarding mobile phone addiction. Moreover, little research has been conducted on smartphone use and its consequences. Metacog- nitions  was  found  to  be  involved in addictive behaviours, including problems with drinking and smoking  (Spada  et  al.,  2013;  Nikèeviæ  and Spada, 2012), gambling (Spada et al., 2015), problematic gaming (Marino and Spada, 2017), generalized problematic Internet use (Spada et al., 2008), and problematic social media   use (Casale,  Rugai  and  Fioravanti,  2018;  Marino et  al.,  2018). 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of mobile phones has increased up to three times in school-going children. This can have a  major impact  on  the  behavior  of  young  children. Increased use of mobile phones has also resulted in certain behavioral changes and mental stress in school-going children. Therefore, considering the high rate of smartphone use among Indian adolescents, this area needs to be further explo- red, with a focus on developmental constructs such as cognitive and emotional functioning, so that the best prevention and treatment strategies can be worked out. The objective of the study is to study metacognition and positive and negative affect among school children with maladaptive mobile phone use. 

METHODS 

Ethical  approval  was  received  from  the Institutional Ethics Committee and written informed consent was taken from all students’ parents and assent from the students prior to their participation. 

Study design and participants 

This online exploratory study was carried out in the school session of 2020-2021in two co- ed secondary schools in Kanke, Ranchi, India. The study sample was collected using a purposive sampling  method  after  obtaining  informed consent from the principal of the schools. A total of 300 students using a smartphone from class 7th-9th were sent the online link, of which 122 gave consent to participate. 83 students scored 16 and above on the Questionnaire about Expe- riences related to Cell phone (CERM) and were sent the link to other questionnaires to measure the metacognition and affect. Participants with any major psychiatric morbidity, chronic or other significant medical, neurological conditions, or organic disorder and any physical or sensory disability were excluded from the study. 

Measures 

Socio-Demographic  and  Clinical  Data 

Sheet (SDCS): It includes information about age, gender, education, religion, and parents’ occupa- tion along with details about significant family histories of  psychiatric  disorders,  duration  of sleep hours, year of starting the use of a smart- phone, time spent with smartphone and purposes of use such as gaming, using social network sites, making  phone  calls,  sending  emails  and messaging.  

CERM (Questionnaire about Experiences related to Cellphone): It is comprised of 10 items, rated for frequency on a four-point scale (Almost  never,  Sometimes,  Often,  almost always). 

“Problematic use” was defined depending on whether the score from the questionnaire  was equal to or above 24 and use with “occasional problems” was based upon a score between 16– 23  for the CERM. Cronbach’s alpha  value is 0.80. 

Meta-cognitions Questionnaire for Adole- scents  (MCQ-A):  It  is a  30-item  measure of metacog- nition for the age group of 12-18 years. As well as a total score, the MCQ-A measures five subscales, including 1) Positive Beliefs (e.g., “Worrying helps me cope”), 2) Uncontrollability and Danger (e.g., “My worrying is bad for me”), 3)  Cognitive Confidence (e.g.,  “I do  not trust my memory”), 4) Superstition, Punishment, and Responsibility (SPR;  e.g., “It is bad to think certain  thoughts”),  and  5)  Cognitive  Self- Consciousness (e.g., “I am constantly aware of my thinking”). Participants indicate how much they agree with each statement on a four-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 (do not agree) to 4 (agree very much). The current study demon- strated  adequate  internal  consistency,  with Cronbach alpha coefficients for each scale as fol- lows: Positive Beliefs = .90; Uncontrollability and Danger = .87; Cognitive Confidence = .87; SPR = .77; Cognitive Self Consciousness = .78; and Total score = .92. 

Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C): PANAS-C  is a 27-item self-report scale  based on direct questioning, designed to assess affect or recent experiences of positive and negative affect in children aged 6 to 18 years. instructs youngsters to indicate how often they have felt interested, sad, and so on during the “past few weeks” or “past 2 weeks” on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely). The PANAS-C has good  psychometric properties,  with reliability alpha coefficients ranging  from .89 to .94 for the two affect scores. 

Procedure 

A list of secondary schools from the Kanke locality of Ranchi, India having coeducation was made and  two  co-ed  secondary  schools  were selected randomly, and which gave permission to carry out the online exploratory study. The WhatsApp group for different sections of the class of 7th, 8th, and 9th was used to send an online link to the google form consisting of forms of the questionnaires. A total of 300 students from class 7th-9th were sent the online link, of which 122  gave  consent  to  participate.  Based  on CERM,  the  cut-off  for  the  identification  of maladap- tive mobile phone use was 24 or higher and  16  or  above  for  occasional  problems according to which maladaptive mobile phone use  among  school  children  was  gauged.  83 children from class 7th-9th were finally taken up for the study and data on socio-demographic, academic performance,  and  scores  on  MCQ- A  and  PANAS-C  were  received  online. 

Analysis 

Appropriate statistical methods were applied using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 25.0). Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the frequency and percent- ages of the socio-demographic variables along with the mean and standard deviation of the clinical variables. Pearson’s correlation was used to find the correlation between the various domains of the clinical variables along with the sociodemo- graphic variables. 

RESULTS 

On CERM, out of 300 students, 83 (68%) students fulfilled the criteria  for maladaptive mobile  phone  use  and  were  included  in  the sample. Out of which 25 (20.5%) were children with  problematic  use  and  58 (47.54%)  were children with occasional problems. Participants sociodemographic and clinical details are given in table 1. There were 49 (59%) males and 34 (41%) females. The majority of school children are  from  class  9th  (48.1%)  followed  by  8th (32.5%) and 7th (19.3%). Mostly, their school performance was average (49.4%), and 47% of children performed in the above-average range and  3.6%  in  the  below-average  range.  The majority of children had no disciplinary action taken against them (85.5%) and 9.6% of children reported disciplinary action being taken more than once and 4.8% of children had disciplinary action taken against them once. The sleep pattern of the majority of children was between 6-8 hours (61.4%) followed by 4-6 hours (19.3%) and more than 8 hours (19.3%). The time spent on a mobile phone was mostly 3-6 hours (49.4%) followed by less than 3 hours (27.7%) and more than 6 hours (22.3%). 

The total score on metacognition was above the cut-off for both males and females with the highest being in females (Table 2). The domains of cognitive self-consciousness, negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger and the need to control thoughts were elevated in males. 

The domains of lack of cognitive confidence, positive beliefs about worry, cognitive self-con- sciousness, negative beliefs  about  uncontroll- ability of danger and the need to control thoughts are elevated in females and were more than those in males. However, the scores on these domains are not statistically significant. The scores in the domain of positive affect were more in males as compared  to  females  and  were  statistically significant (0.048, p < 0.05) while the scores in the  domain  of  negative  affect  were  more  in females  as  compared  to  males  and  were  not statistically significant. 

Table 1 

Socio-demographic details and clinical details of School Children with Maladaptive Mobile Phone Use (N=83) 

Table  3  presents  correlation  between metacognition and affect in school children with mala- daptive mobile phone use. In children with maladaptive mobile phone use, the overall score on  metacognition was significantly positively correlated with negative affect (0.413, <0.05). The domain of lack of cognitive confidence had a strong negative correlation with positive affect (-0.307, <0.01). The domains of positive belief about worry (0.273, p <0.01) and negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger (0.533, <0.01) had a strong positive correlation with negative affect. The domain of cognitive self-conscious- ness  had  a  strong  positive  correlation  with positive affect (0.283, <0.01). In children with Problematic use, the domain of lack of cognitive confidence had a strong negative correlation with positive affect (-0.552, <0.01). The domain of negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger was positively correlated with negative affect (0.043,  <0.05).  In  children  with  Occasional problems, the overall score on metacognition was  significantly positively correlated with negative affect (0.462, <0.01). The domains of lack of cognitive confidence (0.344, <0.01) and negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger (0.536, <0.01) had a strong positive correlation with positive affect. The domains of positive beliefs about worry (0.286, <0.05) and cognitive self-consciousness (0.273, <0.05) were positively correlated with positive affect.


Table 2 

Metacognition and Affect between Male and Female School Children with Maladaptive Mobile Phone use


* Correlation  is significant  at < 0.05  level significantly positively correlated with negative affect (0.462, <0.01). The  domains of lack of cognitive confidence (0.344, <0.01) and negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger (0.536, <0.01)  had a strong positive correlation  with positive affect. The domains of positive beliefs about worry (0.286, <0.05) and cognitive self-consciousness  (0.273,  <0.05) were  positively correlated with positive affect. 

DISCUSSION 

Our study focussed  to  know about metacognition and positive and negative affect among school children with maladaptive mobile phone use. Associations  between  prolonged  mobile phone use and academic performance had been established (Sohn et al., 2019) with prolonged mobile  phone  use  from  >2  hours/day  on weekdays and >5 hours/day on weekends after controlling  for family covariates. However, in the present study despite a higher percentage of maladaptive mobile phone use, very few students were performing below average. The probable reason might be the higher percentage i.e., 47.5% of students were facing occasional problems only as compared to 20.4% of those with problematic use. The majority of participants with maladaptive mobile phone use had no disciplinary action taken against them (85.5%) with 9.6% of children on whom disciplinary action had been taken more than once and 4.8% of participants had disciplinary action taken against them once. The sleep pattern of most children was between 6-8 hours (61.4%) followed by 4-6 hours (19.3%) and more than 8 hours (19.3%). Problematic smartphone use had an association with poor sleep quality (Sohn et al., 2019), however, the mediating effects of reduced sleep duration, insomnia, and depression on the association between prolonged mobile phone use and academic performance have been found small (Liu et al., 2019). The time spent on mobile phone was mostly 3-6 hours (49.4%) followed by less than 3 hours (27.7%) and more than 6 hours (22.3%). This could be because during the pandemic, the classes were being held online for the children which required them to spend more time on the screen.

In the present study, majority of children fulfilled the criteria for maladaptive mobile phone use and were included in the sample out of which 25 (20.5%) were children with problematic use and 58 (47.54%) were children with occasional problems. This was much higher than the percentage previous studies have reported (Sahu, Gandhi and Sharma, 2019; Nikhita, Jadhav and Ajinkya, 2015). Nikhita et al. (2015) reported the prevalence of mobile phone dependence (MPD) as 31.33% in secondary school adolescents in Navi Mumbai, India (Nikhita, Jadhav and Ajinkya, 2015). It could be due to differences in assessment tools used for measuring mobile phone dependence or maladaptive mobile phone use and the large sample size.

Table 3 

Correlation between Metacognition and Affect in school children with Maladaptive Mobile Phone Use

 


Relationship among Metacognition, Affect and Maladaptive Mobile Phone Use 

Metacognitive difficulties were significantly associated with the negative affect in the present study as supported by a study by Spada et al. in 2019, (Spada et al., 2008). Their results would seem  to  suggest  that individual differences  in metacognition are relevant to understanding the link  between  perceived  stress  and  negative emotion. Negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger were associated with negative affect in all the groups with overall maladaptive mo- bile phone use and those with problematic use and occasional problems. This may indicate that children who were not able to control their use of mobile phone use  had more negative emo- tions.  This  could  be  because  metacognition manages  the  cognitive  system  and  emotions related  to  the cognitions. Good metacognitive skills have protective effects on anxiety disorders, and behavioural addictions. When  individuals lose contact with mobile phones, they can have certain thoughts like “I will lose contact with my friends”, “My boredom will not stop if I cannot reach my mobile phone”, or “In a situation of an illness or emergency, I will not be able to reach my family or friends”, “I will lose my connection to the internet, I will not  be able  to reach the information I need and lose control concerning my assignments.”. These automatic thoughts may increase  anxiety and stress levels. Since good metacognitive skills allow the ability to control and correct cognitive errors, they can also provide the management of anxiety and stress caused by these thoughts. Poor metacognitive skills can lead to individuals not being  able to  regulate their anxiety and stress related to automatic thoughts about losing contact with smartphones as also supported by research by Yavuz, et al. in 2019, (Yavuz et al., 2019). 

Lack of cognitive confidence among students with occasional problems with smartphone usage was strongly related to negative affect while it showed  a negative  relationship  with  positive affect in those with problematic use. This indica- ted  that  when  lack  of  cognitive  confidence increased, negative affect also increased when problems  were  perceived  occasionally.  How- ever, the positive affect was decreasing with an increase in  lack of  cognitive confidence when problems were perceived as aggravating. 

Positive beliefs about worry were related to negative  affect  in  children  with  maladaptive mobile phone use. However,  it was related to positive  affect  in  children  with  occasional problems and had no relation in the problematic use group. This  indicated  that  the  belief that worrying helped them cope resulted in a positive effect in case of occasional problems. Adopting worrying as a strategy to  cope with problems might  lead to  negative  affect.  However,  this finding needs further exploration. 

Cognitive  Self Consciousness was related to negative affect in children with maladaptive mobile phone use. However,  it was related to positive  affect  in  children  with  occasional problems and had no relation in the problematic use  group. This suggested  that the  degree to which one monitors their thoughts and focuses their attention inwards leads to positive affect in individuals. However, it might lead to negative emotions in individuals who focus their attention and tries to monitor their mind every time. The relation between cognitive self-consciousness and affect had  not  been  observed  in research and needed further exploration. 

Need to control thoughts had no association with affect which further suggests that the extent to which one believes certain thoughts must be suppressed results  in  being able to get rid  of negative thoughts. However, no research finding was available to support the finding. Research showed that the need to control negative thoughts leads to a paradoxical increase in those thoughts, resulting in negative emotions (Spada, Caselli and Wells, 2009). 

The study’s major limitation was that it was exploratory, which could have affected the rela- tionship between the variables. All the scales were self-reporting and administered online which can overestimate or underestimate the real situation of  the children. CERM (Questionnaire  about Experiences related to Cell phone, Panova and Lleras, 2016) is a new scale and there has been limited research using this scale. The relationship among other sociodemographic variables like academic performance, time spent on the phone, amount of sleep, and purpose of mobile phone use with the clinical variables could be done in future research. Longitudinal study design needs to be framed for further research. This would help get a better understanding. A larger sample may be considered in the future to make the result generalizable. Future studies may include a wider age range of young adolescents as well as late- adolescent children so that the various factors involved in the disorder can be understood better. The various domains of metacognition and its relation to affect could be better explored and gender differences could also be examined. Meta- cognitive factors like lack  of  cognitive confi- dence, negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger, positive beliefs about worry, and cogni- tive self-consciousness influence an increase in negative emotions in children with maladaptive mobile phone use. Interventions should focus on improving  metacognition and  increasing pos- itive emotions in students to help children with maladaptive mobile phone use. 

CONCLUSION 

Maladaptive mobile phone use is not uncommon among school children and adolescents. Metacognitive impairment and negative emotions are  seen in  children with  maladaptive  mobile phone use. Few metacognitive domains like lack of cognitive confidence, negative beliefs about uncontrollability of danger, positive beliefs about worry, and cognitive self-consciousness have a positive correlation  with negative emotions  in children with maladaptive mobile phone use. 

Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. 

Funding: Nil.

 

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