Always Connected, Not Always Well: The Moderating Role of Sleep Quality in the Relationship Between Nomophobia and Mental Health Among University Students in Saudi Arabia

As smartphones become progressively embedded in students’ social, academic, and personal lives, concerns have been raised about the emotional consequences of nomophobia (no-mobile-phone phobia). Although previous research has shown an overall correlation between nomophobia and increased mental health symptoms, little is known about whether its main dimensions exerted differential associations with different mental health symptom dimensions or whether sleep quality can influence these relationships. Addressing these gaps, this research tested the associations between four dimensions of nomophobia—Not Being Able to Communicate (NBAC), Losing Connectedness (LC), Not Being Able to Access Information (NBAI), and Giving Up Convenience (GUC)—and three mental health symptoms: depression (Dprtn), anxiety (Enzt), and stress (Strs), while testing the moderating role of sleep quality (SQ) among university students. Drawing upon Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory and Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted among 980 university students. The proposed research model was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results demonstrated that the psychological consequences of nomophobia are dimension-specific rather than homogeneous. LC emerged as the most consistent predictor, showing significant positive associations with depression, anxiety, and stress. In contrast, NBAC was not significantly associated with any of the three mental health outcomes. NBAI showed mixed effects, with a significant positive association with depression, a significant negative association with anxiety, and no significant association with stress. GUC was significantly and positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. Furthermore, sleep quality functioned as a selective moderator, with significant interaction effects for SQ × NBAC on depression and anxiety, SQ × NBAI on depression, and SQ × GUC on depression and stress. No significant moderation effects were observed for the remaining hypothesized interactions. These findings highlight the dimension-specific nature of nomophobia and indicate that the role of sleep quality varies across the specific nomophobia dimension and the mental health outcome considered.