| With the advent of the era of mobile Internet and the popularity of smart phones,mobile phones have penetrated into all aspects of human life and changed people’s work and life style.Due to the diversity of functions,convenience and fashion appearance,smart phones can better meet adolescents’psychological needs such as belonging,curiosity and self-realization,and are gaining popularity among teenagers.However,an accompanying problem appears and worsens,that is,more and more adolescents are obsessed with mobile phones and develop the typical symptoms of behavioral addiction in the process of using mobile phone.Specially,they use their mobile phones excessively and are susceptible to negative emotions such as anxiety and irritability once their mobile phones are unavailable.Mobile phones addiction can produce a series of negative consequences,such as decrease levels of academic performance,harm physicalor psychological health,and even personal casualties,illegal crimes and other malignant events.Therefore,it is of urgent practical significance to explore the influencing factors of mobile phone addiction and carry out the practical interventions on mobile phone addiction among adolescents.Family is the primary and most important social environment for teenagers.Family factors have a direct and important influence on adolescent’ mobile phone addiction.As the legal guardians of minors,parents play a key role and shoulder important responsibilities in guiding their children to use mobile phones reasonably.Most of the previous studies on mobile phone addiction,however,have mainly focused on the effects of individual factors.The effects of the family environment factors are relatively neglected,especially the effect of parental mediation style on mobile phone addiction.Parental mediation,as a parenting method for parents to intervene in children and adolescents’ media use,plays an important role in reducing the negative effects of mobile phones and other electronic products on adolescents.However,the research on parental mediation of adolescents’ mobile phone use has not really started in China at present.Therefore,this study focuses on the influence mechanism of parental mediation on adolescents’ mobile phone addiction and its intervention effect,aiming to provide scientific and effective suggestions for parents to intervene adolescents’ mobile phone addiction behavior.The research findings were as follows:(1)The first study revised parental mediation of smart phone use questionnaire,the revised versions were divided into the adolescent version and the parent version.Each version is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing parents’ mediation of smart phone use in China.(2)Based on parental mediation theory.The second study used paired cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study to investigate the relationship between different types of parental mediation and adolescents’ mobile phone addiction.Substudy 1 examined whether there were differences between parental reported and adolescent reported parental mediation,and the relationship between parental mediation and mobile phone addiction.Research selected 2,880 adolescents and 2,901 parents,form 1,873 matched data as horizontal large sample study.Paired sample t-test showed that in addition to the "time restriction"strategy,adolescents’ perceived active mediation,content restriction,co-use and parental monitoring were all significantly lower than those reported by parents.Correlation analysis showed that active mediation was significantly negatively correlated with mobile phone addiction,and parental monitoring was significantly positively correlated with mobile phone addiction,whether reported by parents or adolescents.However,on the other three parental regulation strategies,the results are inconsistent.Specifically,time restriction was positively correlated with mobile phone addiction,while perceived time restriction was not Perceived content restriction had a significant positive correlation with mobile phone addiction,while content restriction had no correlation with mobile phone addiction.Perceived co-use was significantly positively correlated with mobile phone addiction,while co-use was not correlated with mobile phone addiction.Substudy 2 further explored the quasi-causal relationship between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction,1200 adolescents were followed up two times in half of a year.Results from cross-lagged regression analyses indicated that the pre-test active mediation could negatively predict post-test mobile phone addiction,but pre-test mobile phone addiction could not predict post-test active mediation.The pre-test content restriction and the pre-test parental monitoring were positive predictors of the post-test mobile phone addiction,but the pre-test mobile phone.addiction did not predict the post-test content restriction and parental monitoring.The pre-test time restriction were not associated with the post-test phone addiction,the pre-test phone addiction were also not associated with the post-test time restriction.The pre-test co-use did not predict the post-test mobile phone addiction,while the pre-test mobile phone addiction could positively predict the post-test co-use.In conclusion,the relationship between the two was not mutually predictive,which supported the model of parental mediation affecting adolescents’ problem behaviors to a certain extent.In other words,parental mediation was the cause,while adolescent mobile phone addiction tendency was the effect.(3)Based on self-determinism and other theories,the third study explored the psychological mechanism of parental mediation affecting adolescents’ mobile phone addiction from the perspectives of motivation,emotion and cognition.Substudy 3 explored the chain mediating role of basic psychological need and fear of missing out between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.A cross-sectional questionnaire was used to investigate 1947 adolescents,the results showed that psychological need satisfaction played a mediating role between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction,but fear of missing out did not mediate between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.Both basic psychological need and fear of missing out played a chain mediating role between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.Specifically,positive mediation could meet the basic psychological needs of adolescents,and then decreased their fear of missing out,thus reduced their mobile phone addiction,content restriction and parental monitoring might hinder the satisfaction of adolescents’ basic psychological needs,thus increased their fear of missing out and lead to mobile phone addiction.Substudy 4 explored the chain-mediating effects of basic psychological need and positive outcome expectation between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.A cross-sectional questionnaire was used to investigate 1947 adolescents;the results showed that basic psychological need played a mediating role between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.Positive outcome expectation mediated the relationship between active mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.In other words,active mediation could reduce the individual’s positive outcome expectation and thus decreased their mobile phone addiction.However,positive outcome expectations did not mediate between content restriction and parental monitoring and adolescent mobile phone addiction.Basic psychological need and positive outcome expectation played a chain mediating role between parental mediation and adolescent mobile phone addiction.Specifically,active mediation could satisfy adolescents’ basic the psychological needs and decreased the positive outcome expectation,thus reduced their the addictive behavior of mobile phone.Content restriction and parental monitoring could hinder the satisfaction of adolescents’ basic psychological needs,thus increased their positive outcome expectations and lead to mobile phone addiction behavior.(4)From the perspective of family education,the fourth study implemented a set of the intervention experiments improved the level of parental active mediation and test the effect of parental active mediation on adolescents’ mobile phone addiction.Substudy 5 investigated whether parental training could improve parents’ active mediation level,the experimental-control group pretest and posttest design was carried out.62 parents who had mobile phone addiction children were divided randomly into two groups.A sample of 31 parents in the experimental group received six times training.The results revealed that for parents with the same levels of active mediation,parents who received the six times training had higher levels of active mediation than those who did not.More notably,the efficacy of parents who participated in the training was still significant after two months,which implies that parental training could effectively improve parents’levels of active mediation in a relatively long term.Substudy 6 investigated the intervention effect of parental active mediation on adolescents’mobile phone addiction,the experimental-control group pretest and posttest design were carried out.29 families participating in parental training were selected as the experimental group,and 31 families non-participating in parental training were selected as the control group.The results found that for the same degree of adolescents’ mobile phone addiction,parents adopted the active mediation could effectively reduced their children’ mobile phone addiction behaviors compared with the parents did not adopt the active mediation.Noticeably,this intervention effect needed several times and was still significant after three months.In addition,active mediation could meet the psychological needs of adolescents;this intervention effect also needed several interventions,and was still significant after three months.Active mediation also reduced teens’ expectations of positive outcomes but this effect disappeared after three months.Positive regulation could not reduce adolescents’ fear of missing out.In short,this study focuses on the relationship between parental mediation and mobile phone addiction in adolescent,and explores the psychological mechanism of parental mediation on adolescent mobile phone addiction and the effect of practical intervention.Theoretically,the present study verified the validity of parental mediation theory in China,which could serve as an important supplement to the relevant research in the context of Chinese culture.This study not only integrated a variety of theories such as self-determinism theory,psychological need satisfaction theory and cognitive behavior theory with parental mediation theory.It also expanded the theory of parental mediation to a certain extent but also revealed the psychological mechanism of parental mediation on adolescent mobile phone addiction.Practically,this study conducts an intervention experiment in a real family context,and the results encourage parents adopting active mediation to intervene adolescents’mobile phone addiction behaviors in family education.Meanwhile because of the cumulative effect of intervention,it is suggested that parents should be patient enough to change their children’s bad behaviors with the scientific guidance.In addition,this study also develops a series of detailed parental training courses that can improve the level of parents’ active mediation,which can also provide a reference for the curriculum design of following-up relative parental training. |
