Analysis of the longitudinal effects of parents' negative parenting attitude and adolescents' social intelligence on problematic smartphone game use

This study aimed to verify the longitudinal influence of negative parenting attitudes and adolescents' social intelligence on problematic smartphone game use. Multivariate analysis was conducted using the Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) method to determine the longitudinal relationship between adolescents' problematic smartphone game use and parents' negative parenting attitudes, and social intelligence. The main results of this study are as follows: First, parents' negative parenting attitudes were divided into subfactors to confirm their longitudinal effect on adolescents' problematic smartphone game use. The results showed that parents' excessive intervention and inconsistent parenting attitude had a significant effect on problematic smartphone game use; however, parents' excessive expectation attitude had no significant relationship with problematic smartphone game use. Second, children's social intelligence had a negative effect on problematic smartphone game use. This study confirmed the independent influence of risk and protective factors on problematic smartphone game use through an analysis of five years of longitudinal data targeting Korean adolescents. However, parenting attitude can affect a adolescents' problematic smartphone game use not only directly but also indirectly through various factors. Therefore, in future research, it is necessary to expand the model of this study by comprehensively considering psychological and environmental factors to determine how specific parenting attitudes affect adolescents' problematic smartphone game use.