زینب حمدانی پور

This study investigated the association between social anxiety and problematic smartphone use among elite student athletes, emphasizing the mediating role of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Employing a descriptive-correlational design based on structural equation modeling, participants were selected through convenience sampling from the population of elite university athletes nationwide. The instruments included the Social Anxiety Questionnaire (Jarabek, 1996), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006), assessing maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, and the Problematic Smartphone Use Scale (Kwon et al., 2013). Data were analyzed using correlational techniques and structural equation modeling. The findings revealed a significant positive relationship between social anxiety and problematic smartphone use, which was mediated by maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Furthermore, the proposed structural model demonstrated an acceptable goodness of fit. These results highlight the importance of developing group-based, educational, and psychological interventions to enhance adaptive emotion regulation strategies and reduce technology-related behavioral problems among elite athletes.