Discussion
In the present paper, we examined the role of rumination in understanding relations between both depression and social anxiety with increased/problematic smartphone use. Several of our hypotheses were supported, demonstrating the impact of rumination in these relationships. At the bivariate and multivariate levels of analysis, rumination was related to problematic smartphone use (Hypothesis 2) but not to smartphone use frequency in multivariate analyses (failing to support Hypothesis 1). We found support for rumination in explaining relations between depression severity and problematic smartphone use levels (Hypothesis 4), and between social anxiety severity in relation to increased problematic smartphone use (Hypothesis 6). However, rumination did not explain relations between depression severity or social anxiety severity with smartphone use frequency (Hypotheses 3 and 5, respectively). Most previous research has examined relations between smartphone use frequency or increased problematic use with depression (recently in Demirci et al., 2015; Lu et al., 2011; Smetaniuk, 2014) and anxiety (recently, Demirci et al., 2015; Kim, R et al., 2015; Lee, Y-K et al., 2014), evidencing direct effects. We found that social anxiety and depression severity may not solely account for increased problematic use of a smartphone. Rumination may be an important mechanism linking anxious and depressive psychopathology with problematic smartphone use.
