Parental technoference and smartphone addiction in Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of social sensitivity and loneliness

Abstract Technology devices are ubiquitous in people’s lives and can interfere with parent-child interactions. This parental technoference is related to negative parent-child relationships and increased child behavior problems. The present study examined the relationship between parental technoference and adolescent smartphone addiction as well as the roles of social sensitivity and loneliness. A sample of 3051 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 13.08 years, SD = 0.89) responded to the anonymous questionnaires regarding covariates, parental technoference, social sensitivity, loneliness, and smartphone addiction. Results indicated that parental technoference could positively predict adolescent smartphone addiction tendency. In addition, social sensitivity and loneliness mediated the association between parental technoference and adolescent smartphone addiction in both parallel and sequential fashion. Specifically, it suggested that parental technoference could lead to higher social sensitivity and loneliness, which in turn resulted in increased adolescent smartphone addiction tendency. The present study contributes to a better understanding of how parental technoference increases the risk of smartphone addiction and also provide important theoretical and practical implications.