Executive Function Difficulty Among Sixth-Grade Elementary School Students and Subsequent Smartphone Addiction in Middle School: The Moderated Mediating Effect of Autonomy through Self-Identity

Smartphone addiction among adolescents has become a serious social issue in today’s digital society. Excessive smartphone dependency harms adolescent’s psychological health and social relationships. This study hypothesized that executive function difficulty among sixth-grade elementary school students, mediated by their self-identity and moderated by autonomy, influences their smartphone addiction when they enter the first-grade of middle school student. To test this hypothesis, this study used data from the 13th and 14th waves of the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) conducted in 2020 and 2021. The data were collected from 1,241 adolescents (634 boys (51.1%) and 607 girls (48.9%)). The mean age for the 13th and 14th waves was 12.23 years (SD=0.90) and 13.31 years (SD=0.14), respectively. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS 30.0 and Process MACRO ver. 4.2. The results showed that executive function difficulty negatively influenced participants’ self-identity, which had a negative effect on smartphone addiction. Earlier executive function difficulties mediated by selfidentity affected subsequent smartphone addiction. Additionally, adolescent autonomy significantly moderated the influence of self-identity on smartphone addiction. The effect of self-identity in mediating between executive function and subsequent smartphone addiction increased when adolescents had greater autonomy. This study illuminates the internal mechanism by which executive function difficulty influences subsequent smartphone addiction. It also underscores the importance of improving executive function and ensuring adolescents’ autonomy regarding smartphone usage to prevent problems due to smartphone addiction.