Intolerance of Uncertainty Mediates the Relationship Between Social Anxiety and Problematic Smartphone Use Severity in College Students.

Objectives: Prior research has found that social anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) are both related to problematic smartphone use (PSU) severity. However, research about the mediating effect of IU from social anxiety to PSU is limited. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of self-report online data from 329 college students in the United States, evaluating IU, social anxiety, and PSU through structural equation modeling. Results: We found that confirmatory factor analytic models of social anxiety, IU and PSU each fit well. Our overall structural equation model also indicated good fit, and IU acted as a significant mediator of the link between social anxiety and PSU severity. To test model specificity, we compared it with an alternative model that added a direct path from social anxiety to PSU. Although the alternative model showed slightly better fit, the improvement was minimal, and theoretical grounds supported keeping the simpler initial model. Conclusions: These results indicate that IU may represent a critical cognitive-affective mechanism linking social anxiety to PSU. PSU might function as a coping mechanism for some individuals to alleviate the negative emotion associated with social anxiety and IU.