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In response to growing concerns over the negative consequences of Internet addiction on adolescents’ mental health, coupled with conflicting results in this literature stream, this meta-analysis sought to (1) examine the association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms in adolescents, (2) examine the moderating role of Internet freedom across countries, and (3) examine the mediating role of excessive daytime sleepiness.

In total, 52 studies were analyzed using robust variance estimation and meta-analytic structural equation modeling.

There was a significant and moderate association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, Internet freedom did not explain heterogeneity in this literature stream before and after controlling for study quality and the percentage of female participants. In support of the displacement hypothesis, this study found that Internet addiction contributes to depressive symptoms through excessive daytime sleepiness (proportion mediated = 17.48%). As the evidence suggests, excessive daytime sleepiness displaces a host of activities beneficial for maintaining mental health. The results were subjected to a battery of robustness checks and the conclusions remain unchanged.

The results underscore the negative consequences of Internet addiction in adolescents. Addressing this issue would involve interventions that promote sleep hygiene and greater offline engagement with peers to alleviate depressive symptoms.

This study utilizes robust meta-analytic techniques to provide the most comprehensive examination of the association between Internet addiction and depressive symptoms in adolescents. The implications intersect with the shared interests of social scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers.

Previous research has found mixed evidence of an attitude–behavior gap in organic food consumption. However, the complex mechanisms underlying this gap warrant further investigation. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of word-of-mouth (WOM), trust, and involvement in the relationship between consumer organic food attitudes and conative loyalty. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used as underlying framework for modeling our conceptualized arguments.

A moderation and moderated mediation analysis was performed on a cross-sectional sample of 1,011 Australian organic food consumers.

The results support the TPB-inspired moderated-mediation model. Specifically, the authors found moderated mediation effects of WOM, trust, and involvement on conative loyalty via attitudes toward organics.

The cross-sectional research design and the focus solely on Australian consumers constitute limitations of this study.

The authors' findings imply that an analysis of the attitude–behavior gap should go beyond the testing of contingent consistency hypotheses and instead combine moderation and mediation mechanisms to better model consumer decision-making leading to conative loyalty. Practitioners would face a resource challenge when targeting low-trust, low-involvement, and low-WOM consumers as developing conative loyalty of these segments would require a longer-term approach through building favorable attitudes toward organic foods.

This study is one of the first to demonstrate the potential of examining the attitude–behavior gap in the organic food context through a moderated mediation lens in explaining the dynamics of conative loyalty.