Objectives This study aims to explore the path leading to smartphone addiction in middle school students by setting parental attitude, self-esteem, and self-control as the key variables influencing smartphone addiction. Parental attitude is considered a family environment variable, while self-esteem and self-control are individual variables. The goal is to investigate how these variables affect smartphone addiction in middle school students from both structural and path perspectives. Methods To this end, a meta-analytic path analysis was conducted on 40 domestic studies that reported the correlation coefficient between smartphone addiction and related variables among studies published up to February 2024 on the topic of smartphone addiction among adolescence middle school students. Results A hypothetical model was established to investigate the structural relationships between key variables related to smartphone addiction in middle school students, namely parental attitude, self-esteem, and self-control. A meta-analytic path analysis was conducted, and the results showed that the average effect size between smartphone addiction and each variable was greatest for self-control, followed by self-esteem and parental attitude. Significant results were found for all paths. Specifically, self-esteem and self-control showed full mediating effects in the relationship between parental attitude and smartphone addiction. The total effect influencing smartphone addiction was found to be most significantly impacted by the self-control variable. Conclusions Based on the results of examining the pathways and influences of parenting attitudes, self-control, and self-esteem variables on smartphone addiction, this study aims to provide evidence that can be used as a reference for the prevention and countermeasures of smartphone addiction in adolescence middle school students.
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