Progress in relationship between chronotype and technology addiction and its mechanism

Abstract

In the era of digitalization, the Internet has changed people's lifestyle and circadian rhythm, and has also brought the global problem of technology addiction. Many studies have shown that chronotype is significantly related to specific technology addiction (such as Internet, smartphones, video games and social media), which makes chronotype become a new perspective to explore the occurrence, development and maintenance of technology addiction. Individuals can be classified into three chronotypes: morning type (M-type), neither type (N-type) and evening type (E-type). Most studies showed that E-type was the risk factor in the onset and maintenance of problematic technology use. At present, most of the prior research focused on the relationship between chronotype and technology addiction, and there were few studies on the mechanism. Based on this situation, this paper discusses physiological factors (such as reward system), psychological factors (such as depression), individual factors (such as gender, age, personality traits and sleep patterns) and environmental factors (such as parental style), analyzes the relationship with Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model and life history theory from the perspectives of etiology and evolution, and reviews the relationship between chronotype and technology addiction and its mechanism.

Keywords

• chronotype
• technology addiction
• reword system
• interaction of person-affect-cognition-execution model
• life history theory