29-01-2025 | Addiction | Original Article
Internet Gaming Addiction or Online Social Networking Addiction? Evidence from Chinese Adolescents Facing Parental Phubbing
Authors:
Zhiyou Wang, Chaoxin Jiang, Heng Dai, Yan Xu
Published in:
International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
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Abstract
This study primarily aims to examine how online social networking addiction and Internet gaming addiction mediate the association of parental phubbing with subjective well-being among Chinese adolescents. The other aim is to investigate the potential gender difference in these interrelationships of parental phubbing, Internet gaming addiction, online social networking addiction, and subjective well-being. The data were collected from a large random questionnaire survey of 1115 school-aged students (47.5% were males and 48.4% were females, mean age = 14.93, standard deviation = 1.95) in Sichuan Province, China. Latent-variable structural equation modeling and multiple-group comparative analyses were conducted to test the proposed theoretical model. Results showed that only Internet gaming addiction significantly mediated the link between parental phubbing and subjective well-being, and the intermediary effect of online social networking addiction was insignificant. Gender difference was found on the path from parental phubbing to adolescents’ subjective well-being by Internet gaming addiction. The results of this study revealed that Internet gaming addiction plays a crucial role in the association between parental phubbing and adolescents’ subjective well-being with gender difference. This understanding provides empirical support for clinicians and social workers to develop and formulate prevention and intervention strategies for different gender groups to improve the well-being of adolescents facing parental phubbing.