earticle

영어

Research purpose was to investigate the influence of elementary school students' smartphone addiction on their academic grade and to examine the multiple mediating effects of their empathy impairment and school adjustment on the influence of smartphone addiction. Research data were gathered from 802 4-6th grade students of four elementary schools in Seoul and Incheon. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data. Particularly, bootstrapping analysis using phantom variables was implemented to examine the multiple mediating effects of empathy impairment. Results were as follows. First, smartphone addiction gave negative influences on school adjustment and academic grade, and also increased empathy impairment from elementary school students. Second, the smartphone addiction gave negative impacts on school adjustment directly as well as indirectly through empathy impairment. Third, smartphone addiction gave negative influences on academic grade indirectly through school adjustment and the path of empathy impairment and school adjustment. This study shows the process of how smartphone addiction can give negative impacts on academic grade directly or indirectly through empathy impairment and school adjustment, and provides basic data to develope educational and counseling programs for reducing the side effects of elementary school students' smartphone addiction.