The Effects of Korean Parents’ Smartphone Addiction on Korean Children’s Smartphone Addiction: Moderating Effects of Children’s Gender and Age

Hye-Gyeong Son, Heeran J. Cho and Kyu-Hyoung Jeong
Additional contact information
Hye-Gyeong Son: College of Nursing, Kosin University, Busan 49104, Korea
Heeran J. Cho: Department of Health Administration, Yonsei University, Seoul 03021, Korea
Kyu-Hyoung Jeong: Department of Social Welfare, Semyung University, Jecheon 27136, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-9

Abstract: Background : Smartphone addiction among children and adolescents has a negative effect, as excessive use of smartphones can cause physical symptoms, such as fatigue, indigestion, and sleep problems, as well as psychopathological problems, such as depression, anxiety, and impulsiveness. Materials and Methods : This study was carried out using the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey 2019 conducted by the National Youth Policy Institute. The total number of participants was 4656 youths (2290 in grade 5 and 2366 in grade 8), and the dependent and independent variables were smartphone addiction in children and parents, respectively. Multiple regression analysis was conducted by Stata 15.0 SE. Results : First, the level of parents’ smartphone addiction affected that of children and adolescents. Second, the children’s and adolescents’ age affected the level of smartphone addiction, while their gender did not affect it. Third, the relationship between the levels of parents’ and children’s smartphone addiction was not moderated by the genders and ages of the children and adolescents. Conclusions : It was confirmed that as parents’ smartphone addiction increased, that of children increased, and smartphone addiction was found to increase in the second grade of middle school (12 years old) rather than grade 5 of elementary school (10 years old). Parents’ and children’s smartphone addiction was not moderated by children’s and adolescents’ gender and age.

Keywords: addictive behavior; children and adolescents; mirror neuron; parental attitude; smartphone addiction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6685/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6685/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:6685-:d:579270

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().