The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Smartphone Addiction in Adolescents and Parental Neglect During the Pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between social media and smartphone addiction in adolescents and their parents’ neglectful behaviors in the pandemic. The main problem of the research is to examine whether the increasing socialization and intimacy needs of adolescents during the pandemic period are an important factor in the emergence of social media and smartphone addiction due to their parents' inability to adequately meet these needs and neglecting their children, especially in terms of supervision. The study group consisted of 280 adolescents aged between 11-14 attending secondary schools in the city center of Ankara, Türkiye and their parents. In terms of the data gathering instruments, an Individual Information Form was administered to both the children and parents for the purpose of gathering socio-demographic data. In addition, adolescents were administered Smartphone Addiction Scale for the purpose of assessing their smartphone addiction levels along with Social Media Addiction Scale for the purpose of assessing their social media addiction levels. On the other hand, the Multidimensional Neglectful Behaviors Scale was administered to the parents in order to assess the level of their neglectful behaviors. As a result, 86.5% (n=218) of adolescents stated that their smartphone use and 78.5% (n=204) stated that their social media use increased during the pandemic period. When the smart phone and social media addiction status of adolescents were compared according to the level of neglect by their parents, it was determined that the neglect scores of adolescents with addiction level-smart phone and -social media use were significantly higher. In addition, it was found that parental neglect levels were positively associated with both smart phone addiction and social media addiction in adolescents, and there was a positive relationship between smart phone addiction and social media addiction in adolescents. The findings were discussed in line with the related literature.