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. 2022 Dec 13;19(24):16702.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416702.

Parental Psychological Control and Addiction Behaviors in Smartphone and Internet: The Mediating Role of Shyness among Adolescents

Qi Zhang  1 , Guangming Ran  2 , Jing Ren  2
Affiliations

Parental Psychological Control and Addiction Behaviors in Smartphone and Internet: The Mediating Role of Shyness among Adolescents

Qi Zhang et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Parental psychological control has been found to be a vital familial factor that is closely related to adolescents' addiction behaviors with regard to smartphones and the internet. However, the underlying mechanisms of these associations are less clear. The aim of the present study was to examine whether shyness mediated the relationships between parental psychological control and these two addiction behaviors. A positivist paradigm was used in the present study. The questionnaires (parental psychological control, shyness, and smartphone and internet addiction questionnaires) were used to collect data from a sample of 1857 Chinese adolescents (961 female, 896 male) in junior and senior middle schools. Descriptive statistics as well as correlation and mediation tests were employed to analyze the data. We observed that adolescents with siblings showed a higher level of internet addiction than those with no siblings. Moreover, three dimensions of parental psychological control were positively associated with addiction behaviors. The following analyses displayed that the correlation between authority assertion and smartphone addiction was greater than that between authority assertion and internet addiction. Subsequently, shyness was significantly positively related to parental psychological control and addiction behaviors. Importantly, we found that the relations between the three dimensions of parental psychological control and the addiction behaviors concerning smartphones and the internet were partially mediated by shyness. This study contributes to our understanding of how parental psychological control predicts high levels of adolescents' addiction behaviors surrounding smartphones and the internet.

Keywords: adolescents; internet addiction; parental psychological control; shyness; smartphone addiction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Structural equation model regarding the mediating effects of shyness on the association between guilt induction and adolescents’ two forms of addiction behaviors (smartphone and internet addiction). Note: Shy (shyness), Sh1–Sh3 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding shyness; Pare1 (guilt induction), P11–P13 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding guilt induction; Phon (smartphone addiction), MP1–MP4 four parcels of evaluative concerns regarding smartphone addiction; Inter (internet addiction), In1–In3 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding internet addiction.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Structural equation model regarding the mediating effects of shyness on the association between love withdrawal and adolescents’ two forms of addiction behaviors. Note: Shy (shyness), Sh1–Sh3 three parcels of evaluative concerns shyness; Pare2 (love withdrawal), P21–P25 five parcels of evaluative concerns regarding love withdrawal; Phon (smartphone addiction), MP1–MP4 four parcels of evaluative concerns regarding smartphone addiction; Inter (internet addiction), In1–In3 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding internet addiction.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Structural equation model regarding the mediating effects of shyness on the association between authority assertion and adolescents’ two forms of addiction behaviors. Note: Shy (shyness), Sh1–Sh3 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding shyness; Pare3 (authority assertion), P21–P25 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding authority assertion; Phon (smartphone addiction), MP1–MP4 four parcels of evaluative concerns regarding smartphone addiction; Inter (internet addiction), In1–In3 three parcels of evaluative concerns regarding internet addiction.
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