Smartphone addiction (Image courtesy of Seoul National University Hospital)
SEOUL, Jul. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent study has confirmed that smartphone addiction can be transmitted from parents to their children.
The research revealed that when parents exhibit high smartphone dependence, nearly 80% of their children also show signs of excessive smartphone use, leading to disruptions in daily life or anxiety when separated from their devices.
According to a paper titled “The Transfer Relationship Between Parents’ and Children’s Smartphone Dependence,” published in the latest issue of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs’ Health and Social Welfare Review, researchers analyzed the correlation between smartphone dependence in sixth-grade elementary school children and their parents.
The researchers classified 2,229 sixth-grade students and their parents (2,051 mothers and 178 fathers) into low-dependence, average, and high-dependence groups based on smartphone-related responses from the third year of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey conducted by the National Youth Policy Institute.
The degree of smartphone dependence was assessed through 15 questions on a four-point scale, including statements such as “Excessive use of smartphones reduces work efficiency (school grades)” and “I feel like I’ve lost the whole world when I can’t use my smartphone.”
An analysis of the data showed that among parents, 33.9% were in the low-dependence group, 49.5% in the average group, and 16.6% in the high-dependence group. For children, 36.4% were classified as low-dependence, 40.3% as average, and 23.3% as high-dependence.
Examining the correlation between parents and children revealed that when parents were in the high-dependence group, 78.6% of their children were also in the high-dependence category. In contrast, only 7.6% of children were highly dependent when their parents were in the low-dependence group.
The researchers emphasized, “The results suggest that to reduce children’s smartphone dependence, parents must also decrease their smartphone usage.”
They proposed developing and promoting online education programs focused on family practices that can be used for systematic parental education and as educational materials at home.
The study also found strong correlations between children’s smartphone dependence and factors such as parent-child relationships and parents’ economic status.
Children were more likely to be in the low-dependence group when parents had positive parenting attitudes, spent more time together, engaged in frequent conversations, and perceived their economic status as higher.
The research team noted that critical and negative interactions from parents may lead children to seek emotional support through smartphone use. They suggested that increasing family time and activities could help reduce children’s smartphone dependence.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
