Perceived Parent-Adolescent Relationship, Perceived Parental Online Behaviors and Pathological Internet Use among Adolescents: Gender-Specific Differences

Qin-Xue Liu,Xiao-Yi Fang,Zong-Kui Zhou,Lin-Yuan Deng,Jin-Tao Zhang,José César Perales

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075642

Abstract

This study examined the associations between adolescents’ perceived relationships with their parents, perceived parental online behaviors, and Pathological Internet Use (PIU) among adolescents. Additional testing was carried out to determine the effect of different genders (parent and adolescent). Cross-sectional data was collected from 4,559 students aged 12 to 21 years in the cities of Beijing and Jinan, People’s Republic of China. Participants responded to an anonymous questionnaire concerning their Internet use behavior, perceived parental Internet use behaviors, and perceived parent-adolescent relationship. Hierarchical linear regressions controlling for adolescents’ age were conducted. Results showed different effects of parent and adolescent gender on perceived parent-adolescent relationship and parent Internet use behavior, as well as some other gender-specific associations. Perceived father-adolescent relationship was the most protective factor against adolescent PIU with perceived maternal Internet use positively predicting PIU for both male and female adolescents. However, perceived paternal Internet use behaviors positively predicted only female adolescent PIU. Results indicated a different effect pathway for fathers and mothers on boys and girls, leading to discussion of the implications for prevention and intervention.

Highlights

As central socializing agents for children, parents provide emotional connections, behavioral constraints, and modeling, which affect children’s development of self-regulation, emotional expressions, and expectations regarding behavior and relationships [1,2]
We proposed the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: The associations between adolescent perceived relationship with parents and parental Internet use behaviors and adolescent Pathological Internet Use (PIU) will differ according to the gender of both parents and adolescents
Adolescent pathological Internet use According to the cutoff point of Adolescent Pathological Internet Use Scale (APIUS), 10.8% of participants (N = 518) were identified with PIU

Summary

Introduction

As central socializing agents for children, parents provide emotional connections, behavioral constraints, and modeling, which affect children’s development of self-regulation, emotional expressions, and expectations regarding behavior and relationships [1,2]. Consistent with results from studies on other problem behaviors (e.g., smoking, drug use, pathological videogaming), perceived parent-adolescent relationship was found to be related to PIU among adolescents and served as a potential protective factor [33,34]. Based on the literature review above, we proposed the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Adolescents’ perceived relationship with their parents will negatively predict adolescent PIU, perceived parental Internet use behavior will positively predict adolescent PIU. Li & Zhou [42] found that parent monitoring negatively predicted PIU for both boys and girls, while parental ignoring and material awarding positively predicted PIU for girls Both Van den Eijnden et al [16] and Liu et al [28] reported associations between adolescent PIU and perception of parental relationship among adolescents with compulsive Internet use, but did not analyze the possible effects of gender.

Methods

Results

Discussion