A Longitudinal Study on the Effects of Parental Anxiety on Mobile Game Addiction in Adolescents: the Mediating Role of Adolescent Anxiety and Loneliness

This study longitudinally investigated the association between parental anxiety and mobile game addiction in adolescents. Additionally, it examined the mediating effects of adolescent anxiety and loneliness on that association. The study analyzed the factors engaged in the behaviors of mobile game addiction using three-wave panel data from the Game User Panel (GUP). The hierarchical regression analysis indicated that parental anxiety at T1 is positively associated with mobile game addiction in adolescents at T3. A mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes’s PROCESS macro (model 4) with bootstrapping, which showed that adolescent anxiety and loneliness at T2 mediated the relationship between parental anxiety at T1 and adolescent mobile game addiction at T3. The results of this study highlight the importance of parental and adolescent mental health in relation to mobile game addiction in adolescents through a longitudinal design. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.