Investigating the cause and effect factors of young children’s smartphone overuse: focusing on the influence of parenting factors

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research investigates the causal factors of smartphone overuse in young children, especially toddlers and preschoolers aged 1–6 years, including parenting style, efficacy, and stress, and parents’ smartphone overuse and the effect on children’ temperaments. Data were collected through a web-based survey in South Korea. Participants were smartphone users who had a child using a smartphone under six years. There were 357 responses in the sample. Roughly 80.4% of parents were in their 30s, and 46.5% of children were toddlers aged 1–3 years. We used structural equation modeling to investigate the relation between children’s smartphone overuse and parenting-related variables. Parenting style influences parenting efficacy, which decreases parenting stress and smartphone overuse among both parents and children. Parents’ smartphone overuse also influences children’s smartphone overuse. Young children’s smartphone overuse affects their activity, emotional sensitivity, and sociability. Finally, smartphone overuse and emotional sensitivity are higher in toddlers than preschoolers. Our results provide practical implications for the parents, government, and providers of content for young children. First, parents should delay their young children’s smart devices usage, watch together, and communicate when their young children use smart devices. Second, government should provide timely information about parenting. Finally, content providers should make content shorter and provide warnings to take breaks, and develop content that improves children’s activity and sociability, and tailoring content to particular age groups.