The Effect Of Parent-adolescent Communication On Social Networking Sites On Adolescents’ Depression: A Moderated Mediation Model

As a typical kind of mental health problem, depression has a relatively high incidence in adolescences. Additionally, empirical studies showed that the depressed mood of adolescents took on linear growth trend with age. Moreover, depression could bring the negative influence on human,such as a lower well-being,a more serious cognitive problem (e.g. memory suppression) and a higher risk of suicide.Therefore, the influencing factors and its mechanism of depression have gained great attention of many researchers, and the exploration of this question is of importance and practical significance for the prevention and interference of depression.Meanwhile, some studies found that the use of social networking sites (SNSs) was one of the crucial factors which influenced the occurrence and development of adolescents’ depression. As one of the most after-sought tool of internet application in modern society, SNSs have high rate of penetration in all citizens. According to the recent survey report, the usage rate of WeChat Moments and QQ Zone, which are typical representatives of SNSs, have separately reached 78.7% and 67.4% in all cyber citizens. Among the SNSs users, adolescents are an important group with their usage rate being increasingly on the rise.The studies related to the relationship between the use of SNSs and depression have found that active use of SNSs could promote adolescents’self-esteem and well-being and lower their level of depression by acquiring positive feedback or social support, while passive use of SNSs could exert negative effect on depression through upper social comparison, self-esteem, negative mood, envy and so on. Existing studies exploring the effect of use of SNSs on depression were mainly from the prospective of adolescents’ use of SNSs by themselves, however, there is scarce in studies which explore the effect of parent-adolescent communication on SNSs on adolescents’ depression from the prospective of parent-adolescent interaction. Base on related theory, empirical studies and age characteristics of adolescents, therefore, the present study constructs a moderated mediation: social capital, involving bonding and bridging social capital, plays as a mediator between parent-adolescent communication on SNSs and adolescents’ depression, while the mediation of social capital is moderated by adolescents’ age.1538 students from 8 middle schools in Wuhan were investigated with the questionnaire of parent-adolescent communication on SNSs, social capital, age and depression. Data was analyzed with SPSS 21.0 and SPSS PROCESS. The results revealed: (1) individuals in middle adolescence had higher social capital than the ones in early adolescence; (2) parent-adolescent communication on SNSs was positively associated with social capital, which in turn was negatively associated with depression,while parent-adolescent communication on SNSs was negatively associated with depression only in middle adolescence; (3) social capital fully mediated the relationship between parent-adolescent communication on SNSs and depression (4)the mediation of bonding social capital in the association between parent-adolescent communication and depression was moderated by adolescents’ age. Specifically, this mediation was only found in middle adolescence; (5)the mediation of bridging social capital in the association between parent-adolescent communication and depression was moderated by adolescents’ age. Specifically, this mediation was found in both two stages of adolescence, but it was higher middle adolescence.Finally,the theoretical and practical values were discussed,while the future directions were introduced based on the limitations of the present study.