The Roles of Distress Tolerance and Cognitive Reappraisal in Anxiety Responses to a Smartphone Abstinence Intervention

Research shows that abstaining from substances can produce withdrawal-like symptoms, such as anxiety, and emerging evidence suggests similar effects during digital abstinence. However, higher distress tolerance (DT) and the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, are linked to reduced anxiety. In this study, participants (n = 108) completed trait-level measures of DT and reappraisal and then attended two counterbalanced lab visits: one following 24 hours of typical smartphone use (control condition) and one following 24 hours of complete smartphone abstinence (abstinence condition). At each visit, participants self-reported their state-level anxiety. I hypothesized that, after controlling for gender, state anxiety would be higher in the abstinence condition than in the control condition, with greater increases among individuals low in DT and low use of cognitive reappraisal. Paired-samples t-tests assessed differences in state anxiety between conditions. Two-way and three-way mixed analyses of variance tested DT and reappraisal as moderators of the association between condition and state anxiety, respectively. Results demonstrated that participants had significantly lower state anxiety in the abstinence condition compared to in the control condition, even after collapsing across DT, cognitive reappraisal, and gender groups. No significant two-way (DT x condition; cognitive reappraisal x condition) or three-way (DT x cognitive reappraisal x condition) interactions significantly predicted state anxiety. Findings suggest that short-term smartphone abstinence can improve momentary anxiety levels. Future research should investigate the time frame and mechanisms by which the effect of an abstinence intervention on state anxiety occurs.