The Relationship Between Cumulative Ecological Risk and Problematic Smartphone Use Among Chinese College Students: Based on Latent Profile Analysis

The aim of the current study is to explore the number of classes of cumulative ecological risk with latent profile analysis. Furthermore, the relationships between the classes of cumulative ecological risk and problematic smartphone use (PSU) among 2050 Chinese college students were researched. The results showed that there are four latent classes of cumulative ecological risk among college students, namely, low risk — medium peer relationship risk group, medium risk — high belonging risk group, high identity risk — very high friend conflict risk group and high risk group, accounting for 11.71%, 30.54%, 9.75% and 48.00%, respectively. The number of the high risk group is the largest with the highest family risk, school risk, peer risk and social risk. The students in the medium risk — high belonging risk group have a particularly high risk of belonging, which should be paid attention to. The students in the low risk — medium peer relationship risk group are with a low level of ecological risk. The high identity risk — very high friend conflict risk group have the fewest students, indicating that only a few students have high school identity risk and very high risk of friend conflict. In addition, cumulative ecological risk is significantly positively correlated with PSU, and the PSU level of the high risk group is significantly higher than that of other groups. These findings indicate that there is considerable heterogeneity in cumulative ecological risk, and there is different correlation between cumulative ecological risk and PSU among college students. The current study not only enriches the biological ecological model, showing that the combined action of multiple ecological risks has a greater impact on PSU, but also provides a basis for classified intervention of college students of different classes.