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Parental Phubbing, Self-Esteem, and Suicidal Ideation among Chinese Adolescents: A Longitudinal Mediational Analysis

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Abstract

Parental phubbing refers to a phenomenon in which parents are distracted by their smartphones when they interact with their children. It has become a common concern and linked to adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. However, much remains unclear about reciprocal associations among parental phubbing, self-esteem, and suicidal ideation and the potential mechanisms underlying these associations. To address these gaps, the current study tested bidirectional relationships among parental phubbing, self-esteem, and suicidal ideation, as well as the mediating role of self-esteem. In addition, the present study examined whether these relationships varied by extraversion, gender, and perceived economic stress across three time points using a cross-lagged design. A total of 2407 Chinese adolescents (50.23% girls, Mage = 12.75, SD = 0.58 at baseline) participated in the study. The results showed that parental phubbing was associated with self-esteem as well as with suicidal ideation, and there were bidirectional relationships between self-esteem and suicidal ideation. Self-esteem significantly mediated the association between parental phubbing and suicidal ideation. Extraversion moderated the link between parental phubbing and suicidal ideation as well as self-esteem and suicidal ideation during the first year. Gender and perceived economic stress did not play a moderating role. The results indicate that parental phubbing is a new risk factor for adolescents’ suicidal ideation. Parents concerned about adolescents’ self-esteem and suicidal ideation should focus on minimizing the frequency of smartphone use and teach adolescents some social skills to seek more sources of social support.

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Acknowledgements

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project of China (20YJC190021). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors. We would like to thank all of the school partners and adolescents who participated in this study.

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  1. School of Educational Science, Shanxi University, No. 92 Wucheng Road, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Xingchao Wang & Yuran Qiao

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  1. Xingchao Wang
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  2. Yuran Qiao
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Contributions

X.W. conceived of the study, authored the funding application, coordinated the data collection, participated in the interpretation of the data, conceived of the manuscript, and revising the draft; Y.Q. participated in the interpretation of the data, performed statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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This research was supported by the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project of China (20YJC190021) to X.W.

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Correspondence to Yuran Qiao.

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All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by Shanxi University Ethics Committee in Taiyuan, China.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Wang, X., Qiao, Y. Parental Phubbing, Self-Esteem, and Suicidal Ideation among Chinese Adolescents: A Longitudinal Mediational Analysis. J Youth Adolescence 51, 2248–2260 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01655-9

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