Longitudinal Relationship of Perceived Parenting, Depression, and Smartphone Addiction in Early Adolescents

Objectives The purpose of this study was to determine the longitudinal relationship between perceived parenting style, depression, and smartphone addiction in early adolescents. Methods For the purpose of this study, the data of 2,670 elementary school fourth graders from the Korean Child and Youth Panel Survey (KYCPS) 2018 were used for three years from 2018 (1st wave) to 2020 (3rd wave), and analyzed by the autoregressive cross-lagged model, which can confirm the mutual causal relationship between the three variables. The research steps included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and autoregressive cross-lagged analysis. Results The results of the analysis showed that, first, negative parenting, depression, and smartphone addiction at the previous time point significantly predicted negative parenting, depression, and smartphone addiction at the next time point, indicating that the relationship between the three latent variables was stable over the three-year time period. Second, the interaction effects of negative parenting, depression, and smartphone addiction were different. There was a significant cross-lagged effect between depression and smartphone addiction, suggesting a mutual causal relationship between depression and smartphone addiction. There were no cross-lagged effects between negative parenting and depression, and negative parenting and smartphone addiction. Conclusions The relationship between perceived parenting style, depression, and smartphone addiction in early adolescents is consistent over time, suggesting the need for psychoeducational interventions during early adolescence. Furthermore, the reciprocal relationship between depression and smartphone addiction in early adolescents suggests that proactive efforts to prevent depression and smartphone addiction in the early school years are needed.