ATTENTION BIAS TRAINING FOR REDUCING SMARTPHONE ADDICTION IN CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS

We explored whether attention bias training (ABT) can effectively reduce attention bias (AB) and the degree of smartphone addiction and promote improved behavioral and emotional states among college students. Thirtythree participants with scores >= 77 on the Smartphone Addiction Scale for College Students (SAS-C) were randomly divided into ABT and attention control (AC) groups. We used the modified dot-probe task to train attention once a day for 6 days. Results showed that the reaction times (p = .004, eta(2) = .131), AB (p < .001, eta(2) = .379), and smartphone addiction (p = .043, eta(2) = .133) of the ABT group were reduced compared to the AC group posttraining, and emotional regulation ability (p = .095, eta(2) = .093) was marginally improved. Seventy-five percent of the ABT group no longer met the criteria for smartphone addiction, compared with forty-six percent of the AC group. Irrespective of training condition, participants' daily smartphone usage time decreased. This suggests that ABT can reduce AB and the severity of smartphone addiction in college students and improve emotional regulation ability to a lesser extent.