Poster #240 - Internet Addiction: A Closer Look at Multidimensional Parenting Practices and Child Mental Health

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

People rely on the Internet to do lots of things to make life more convenient, efficient, and interesting. However, we need to be aware of the dark side of Internet use—Internet addiction. Internet addiction refers to excessive time spent on Internet activities, resulting in behavioral impairment and psychological dysfunction in daily life (Young, 1998). Considering the levels of self-control and brain development, children and adolescents are more vulnerable to Internet addiction than adults when highly exposed to the Internet. Internet addiction itself is considered as only the tip of the iceberg. To prevent or intervene in problems of Internet addiction, we need to first understand the risk factors from a multidimensional perspective. Four major factors associated with Internet addiction were identified: Sociodemographic variables, Internet use variables, psychosocial factors, and comorbid symptoms (Kuss, Griffiths, Karila, & Billieux, 2014). Parenting is one of the important psychosocial factors. Compared to Western societies, shaming is more commonly used by Chinese parents as a psychological manipulation tool to effectively control children and gain their immediate compliance (Helwig, To, Wang, Liu, & Yang, 2014). And, shaming was found to be positively related to withdrawn behaviors among Chinese preschoolers (Nelson, Hart, Wu, Yang, Roper, & Jin, 2006). The current study aimed to examine how both psychosocial variables (authoritative, authoritarian, and Chinese-specific parenting “shaming”, and parent-child relationships) and comorbid symptoms variables (psychological symptoms) were associated with Internet addiction, while controlling for the sociodemographic variable (child gender). A national proportionately-stratified random sample of 6,233 fourth-grade primary school students in Taiwan participated in the study. Hierarchical regression models were performed to test the research hypotheses. The results show that psychological symptoms, authoritarian parenting and Chinese-specific parenting (shaming) were positively associated with Internet addiction, whereas authoritative parenting and positive parent-child relationship were negatively associated with Internet addiction. Girls had lower levels of Internet addiction than boys. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the direct effects of child mental health status, multidimensional parenting practices, and family relationship on Internet addiction in children, and (2) the importance of early individual- and family-based prevention and intervention in addressing related public health concerns of Internet addiction in children. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Authors

• Yi-Ping Hsieh, University of North Dakota
  Presenting Author

• Hsiao-Lin Hwa, National Taiwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• April C. T. Shen, National Taiwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hsi-Sheng Wei, National Taipei University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jui-Ying Feng, National Cheng Kung University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ching-Yu Huang, Bournemouth University
  Non-Presenting Author