New research reveals why some young people are more vulnerable to overuse of short-form videos, suggesting deeper emotional blind spots and lapses in attention could be behind endless scrolling.
Research: From attachment anxiety to short video addiction: The role of attentional control and alexithymia. Image credit: Javier Bermudez Zayas/Shutterstock.com
recent frontiers of psychology This study investigated the association between short-form video addiction and attachment anxiety, attentional control, and alexithymia. Higher levels of short video addiction are positively associated with attachment anxiety, but an indirect association exists through two pathways: increased alexithymia and decreased attentional control.
Short video addiction and attachment anxiety theory
Short-form video addiction (SVA) involves excessive involvement in short-form video applications (e.g., TikTok), which can lead to decreased efficiency in daily activities and a tendency to use such videos for coping or escape. The problem is most prevalent among young people, such as university students, with prevalence rates sometimes reported to be as high as 27.12%. Therefore, a better understanding of the psychological correlates of SVA is essential.
Susceptibility to behavioral addiction is closely related to self-regulatory patterns, in addition to external technological features such as algorithmic recommendations and immediate feedback. Attachment theory states that early interactions with primary caregivers have long-lasting effects on individuals and that insecure attachment is associated with difficulties regulating attention. SVA may be a compensatory behavioral tendency associated with attachment-related vulnerability.
Attachment anxiety (AA) is associated with negative self-evaluation, an intense fear of rejection, and a tendency to excessively seek reassurance to reduce inner anxiety. It also shapes underlying cognitive processing, particularly attentional control (AC). In other words, AA is associated with an impairment in an individual’s ability to allocate attention to the current task, leading to observable deficits in AC.
Alexithymia (Ale) is a condition in which individuals have difficulty explaining their emotions to others or identifying their own emotions. It is also closely related to early attachment experiences. Unreliable or intrusive responses to the child’s emotional needs during early interactions with the primary caregiver can ultimately result in a chaotic emotional world, manifesting as yelling. When these people are faced with stress, they are unable to control their emotions. As a result, short videos present highly appealing “solutions” and serve as a cognitive and emotional escape.
Assessing the relationship between AA and SVA
Multiple hypotheses were tested. AA is related to SVA through AC. AA is associated with SVA through Ale. and a more continuous path from AA to AC to Ale to SVA. A total of 364 Chinese university students were recruited for this study and completed the survey under the guidance of an experimenter in the classroom. Several exclusion criteria were applied to ensure data quality. The final sample consisted of 342 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 22, of whom 246 were male and 96 female. This study adopted a cross-sectional design using self-report measures.
Different scales were used to measure AA, AC, Ale, and SVA. The AA scale consisted of eight items and was rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). A higher total score means a higher AA. The Attentional Control Scale (ACS) consisted of 20 items and two subscales (focusing attention and shifting attention). A score of 1 on a 4-point Likert scale means strongly disagree and a score of 4 means strongly agree. Higher scores indicate better attentional control.
The Chinese-revised Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used to assess Yale, while SVA was assessed using the 20-item Short Video Addiction Scale (SFVAS). The latter was developed for Chinese university students. Higher scores on the SFVAS indicated a greater propensity for non-clinical dependence.
AA is associated with SVA via attentional control and alexithymia
Regarding descriptive statistics and correlations between the studied variables, AA was positively associated with SVA (r = 0.21) and Ale (r = 0.39) and negatively associated with AC (r = -0.19). The correlation between AC and SVA was -0.31, and the correlation between SVA and Ale was 0.46. Overall, the distribution of the variables was approximately normal, supporting the parametric analysis. Harman’s single-factor test indicated a low likelihood of significant common method bias that could confound interpretation of the data.
Significant sex differences were observed in both attachment anxiety and attentional control, but no significant differences were found across grade groups. Higher levels of attachment anxiety were associated with lower levels of attentional control, and gender also played a role in predicting levels of attentional control. Second, decreased attentional control was associated with increased short-form video addiction, with gender once again emerging as a factor.
Attachment anxiety also showed a positive correlation with short video addiction, whereas attentional control showed a negative relationship with addiction tendency. Importantly, attachment anxiety remained associated with high levels of short video use, even after accounting for differences in attentional control. Overall, these findings support the first hypothesis and indicate that attentional control can partially explain the relationship between attachment anxiety and short video addiction.
Regarding the hypothesis that AA influences SVA through the affective pathway Ale, the higher the attachment anxiety, the stronger the alexithymia, meaning that individuals are more likely to have difficulty identifying and explaining their emotions. Gender also showed a moderate relationship with the level of alexithymia. In turn, increased alexithymia was associated with increased short video addiction. Taken together, these findings support the second hypothesis and indicate that emotional processing difficulties help explain the association between attachment anxiety and problematic short video use.
In continuous mediation analyses, gender and grade were included as covariates. The results showed that Ale significantly positively predicted SVA, whereas AC significantly negatively predicted SVA. A bias-corrected percentile bootstrap procedure was performed to test for linkage mediation effects. The results showed that the overall effect of AA on SVA was significant, but the direct effect was not significant when the mediators were taken into account. However, all indirect paths were significant, such as AA to AC to SVA, AA to Ale to SVA, and AA to AC to Ale to SVA.
conclusion
In this study, we systematically investigated the association between SVA, AA, AC, and Ale using an integrated chain-mediated model. It was noted that AA was associated with increased engagement in the use of short videos. Additionally, differences were found in the self-regulatory abilities of AC and Ale.
This finding suggests potential targets for intervention. People with high AA may benefit from targeting factors such as AC and Ale. This “dual pathway” intervention strategy may help address the observed association between SVA and AA. The findings should also be interpreted within the Chinese cultural context, where norms regarding emotional expression and regulation can shape how individuals interact with digital media.
Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the direction of these relationships. However, given the cross-sectional and self-report nature of the study, these findings should be interpreted as associational rather than causal.
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Reference magazines:
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Su, H., Luo, D., Wang, H., Li, X., & He, Y. (2026) From attachment anxiety to short video addiction: The role of attentional control and alexithymia. Frontiers of Psychology. 17, 1764536. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1764536. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1764536/full
