Effects of Parents' Negative Parenting Attitudes on Adolescents' Smartphone Overdependence : Sequential Mediating Effects of Peer Relationships and Grit

This study aimed to investigate whether peer relationships and grit could sequentially mediate the relationship between parents’ negative parenting attitudes and adolescents’ smartphone overdependence. For this purpose, data from the fifth wave(2022) of the 2018 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS) were analyzed, specifically targeting the cohort of students who were in fourth grade during the initial survey. The final sample included 2,238 second-year middle school students with no missing data reported by them using their own smartphones. This study employed measurement scales for negative parenting attitudes, peer relationships, grit, and smartphone overdependence. Data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics 26.0 and SPSS Process Macro 4.2. Key findings are as follows. First, parents’ negative parenting attitudes significantly and directly influenced adolescents’ smartphone overdependence. Second, when examining simple mediating effects of peer relationships and grit on the relationship between negative parenting attitudes and smartphone overdependence, grit showed a significant mediating effect, whereas peer relationships did not. Third, negative parenting attitudes affected adolescents’ smartphone overdependence through sequential mediating effects of peer relationships and grit. These findings indicate the importance of a comprehensive intervention approach to prevent adolescents’ smartphone overdependence by improving parenting attitudes through parent education, fostering stronger peer relationships, and reinforcing grit as an essential internal resource.