Smartphone Dependence, Sleep Quality, and Suicidal Ideation Across Adolescence: A Six-Year Longitudinal Study
Abstract
Suicide is a leading cause of death during adolescence, and both smartphone dependence and poor sleep have been associated with suicidal ideation. However, it remains unclear whether these associations reflect stable differences between adolescents or year-to-year changes within adolescents. This study examined the developmental trajectories of smartphone dependence, sleep quality, and suicidal ideation over six years spanning the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and tested whether sleep quality accounted for the association between smartphone dependence and suicidal ideation at the between-person and within-person levels. Data were drawn from six annual waves (2018 to 2023) of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey 2018 middle school first-grade cohort (N = 2590; 54.2% boys). A parallel piecewise latent growth curve model (LGCM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) were estimated. Smartphone dependence increased before the pandemic onset (B = 1.47 per year) and declined slightly thereafter (B = −0.16), sleep quality declined after the onset (B = −0.05), and suicidal ideation decreased before the onset (B = −0.10) and increased gradually thereafter (B = 0.03), with no immediate shift at the onset. In the LGCM, the indirect effect of smartphone dependence on suicidal ideation through sleep quality was significant for usual levels (B = 0.005, p < 0.001) and pre-onset change (B = 0.008, p = 0.001) but not for post-onset change (B = −0.001, p = 0.570); Wald…
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