A Quantitative Study on the Role of Emotional Regulation and Coping Strategies in Predicting Smartphone Overuse among Malaysian Young Adults in Klang Valley

This paper investigates the role of emotional regulation and coping strategies in predicting smartphone overuse among Malaysian young adults in Klang Valley. A quantitative study was done among 191 Malaysian young adults between the age 18 to 25. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to explore the relationship and predictive effects of emotion-oriented coping, task-oriented coping, avoidance-oriented coping, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on smartphone overuse. Smartphone overuse was found to be significantly positively correlated with emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping. However, only emotion-oriented coping was found to significantly predict smartphone overuse (beta = .40, p < .001), while task-oriented coping, avoidance-oriented coping, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were not significant predictors. These findings imply that emotion-oriented coping may be especially applicable to excessive smartphone usage among Malaysian young adults and it underlines the need of encouraging adaptive coping strategies and healthier approaches managing emotional discomfort.