Insecure attachment and technology addiction among Italian young adults: the mediating role of impulsivity, alexithymia and general psychological distress

Introduction: The majority of previous studies (Schimmenti et al., 2014) have investigated the direct effect of insecurity attachment with youth's internet and smartphone addiction. However, the potential mediators of this relation have been understudied. In this contribution, we examined the mediating role of some psychological risk factors (i.e., impulsivity, psychological distress and alexithymia) in the relation between insecure attachment dimensions (i.e., attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) and technology addiction (i.e. problematic Internet use, smartphone addiction and Internet addiction). In addition, we also tested the moderating role of gender. Materials and Methods: Data were collected from 539 Italian adolescents and young adults, mostly females (N = 378; 70.1%), aged 19.76 ± 1.99 years. Participants completed self-report measures of attachment insecurity, psychological risk factors and technology addiction. Results: Main results from multi-group path analysis model showed that attachment anxiety had no direct effect on technology addiction,whereas attachment avoidance had a small negative direct effect, but only among women. Anxiety and avoidant attachment dimensions were significantly and positively associated with technology addiction only through the increase of all psychological risk factors. Finally, no moderation effect of gender was found. Discussion: Findings suggested that higher levels of insecure attachment dimensions are associated with higher levels of impulsivity, psychological distress and alexithymia that in turn contribute to the increase of technology addiction. Such findings might have relevant implications to inform any treatment plan for young adults who are overinvolved with technology activities and so to deliver patient-tailored interventions.