Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Jan 22:27:e57636.
doi: 10.2196/57636.

Parental Technoference and Child Problematic Media Use: Meta-Analysis

Jinghui Zhang  1 , Qing Zhang  1 , Bowen Xiao  2 , Yuxuan Cao  1 , Yu Chen  1 , Yan Li  1
Affiliations
Review

Parental Technoference and Child Problematic Media Use: Meta-Analysis

Jinghui Zhang et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Parental technoference, the interruption of parent-child interactions by technology, has been associated with negative outcomes in children's media use. However, the magnitude of this relationship and its moderating factors remain unclear.

Objective: This study aims to systematically examine the relationship between parental technoference and child problematic media use, as well as to identify moderating factors such as age, parental technoference group, study design, and type of problematic media use.

Methods: Following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, a comprehensive literature search was conducted up to August 2024 across multiple databases, including Web of Science, EBSCO, ProQuest, PubMed, PsycINFO, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, using predefined search strings. A total of 53 studies with a total of 60,555 participants (mean age of 13.84, SD 1.18 years) were included. Inclusion criteria comprised studies involving children under the age of 22 years, assessing the association between parental technoference and child problematic media use with valid measures, and reporting necessary statistical data. Exclusion criteria included studies focusing on other child outcomes, having sample sizes <30, or being case reports or review papers. The risk of bias was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed using R (version 4.2.1; R Foundation for Statistical Computing) with the meta and metafor packages to evaluate the association and conduct moderator analyses.

Results: The meta-analysis identified a significant positive association between parental technoference and child problematic media use (r=0.296, 95% CI 0.259-0.331). Moderator analyses revealed that both parental technoference group (P<.001) and study design (P=.008) significantly influenced this relationship. Specifically, the association was stronger when both parents engaged in technoference compared to when only 1 parent did, and in cross-sectional studies compared to longitudinal studies. Age, gender, publication status, and type of problematic media use did not significantly moderate the relationship (all P>.05).

Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides robust evidence of the association between parental technoference and child problematic media use. The findings highlight the need for family-based interventions and underscore the importance of longitudinal research to understand the temporal dynamics of this relationship better.

Trial registration: PROSPERO CRD42023471997; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=471997.

Keywords: adolescents; child; children; digital health; interventions; mental health; meta-analysis; parental technoference; phubbing; problematic media use; screen distraction; systematic reviews; youth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of study search.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Funnel plot of the association between parental technoference and child problematic media use.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plot for correlation between parental technoference and child problematic media use.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Domoff SE, Harrison K, Gearhardt AN, Gentile DA, Lumeng JC, Miller AL. Development and validation of the Problematic Media Use Measure: a parent report measure of screen media "addiction" in children. Psychol Pop Media Cult. 2019;8(1):2–11. doi: 10.1037/ppm0000163. https://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/30873299 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dong W, Li S, Wang X. Parental phubbing and Chinese adolescents’ SNSs addiction: loneliness as a mediator and self-esteem as a moderator. Curr Psychol. 2022;42:16560–16572. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-04066-y. - DOI
    1. Lozano-Blasco R, Robres AQ, Sánchez AS. Internet addiction in young adults: a meta-analysis and systematic review. Comput Hum Behav. 2022;130:107201. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2022.107201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107201 - DOI - DOI
    1. Olson JA, Sandra DA, Colucci ES, Bikaii AA, Chmoulevitch D, Nahas J, Raz A. Smartphone addiction is increasing across the world: a meta-analysis of 24 countries. Comput Hum Behav. 2022;129:107138. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2021.107138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.107138 - DOI - DOI
    1. Elhai JD, Dvorak RD, Levine JC, Hall BJ. Problematic smartphone use: a conceptual overview and systematic review of relations with anxiety and depression psychopathology. J Affect Disord. 2017;207:251–259. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2016.08.030.S0165-0327(16)30319-6 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources