ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Addictive Behaviors
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1648291
Parental attachment and Problematic Smartphone Use in Adolescents: the Chain-Mediated Role
Provisionally accepted
- Xi'an University, Xi'an, China
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This study explores how parental attachment influence adolescents' problematic smartphone use (PSU), examining the chain mediating roles of peer attachment and online need satisfaction in this relationship. A chain mediation analysis was conducted using data collected from a sample of 1208 adolescents who completed questionnaires assessing parent/peer attachment, online need satisfaction, and PSU. The results showed that (1) parental attachment were negatively associated with PSU; (2) parental attachment influenced PSU through the mediating effect of peer attachment; (3) parental attachment influenced PSU through the mediating effect of online need satisfaction; and (4) peer attachment and online need satisfaction played a chain mediating role in the influence of parental attachment on adolescents PSU. These findings can help researchers and educators better understand the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between parent and adolescents on PSU and to provide practical and effective operational suggestions for the prevention and intervention of PSU among adolescents.
Keywords: Parental attachment, Problematic smartphone use, Peer attachment, onlineneed satisfaction, Adolescent
Received: 17 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Peng, Cui, Yang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yuan Peng, pengyuan1866@163.com
Hua Wang, yuf1866@163.com
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