Mediating Effects of Self-Regulation on the Relationship between Childhood Smart Device Immersion Tendency and Pro-Social Behavior

Abstract

This study examines the relationship among children's smart device immersion tendency, children's self-regulation, and pro-social behavior as well as investigates the mediating effect of self-regulation between children's smart device immersion tendency and pro-social behavior. Participants were composed of 263 4-year-old children attending kindergarten in Incheon and Gyeonggi province. Data were analyzed by means of Pearson's correlation coefficients in SPSS, the structural equation model and bootstrapping in AMOS. The results are as follows. First, there is a statistically meaningful relationship among children's smart device immersion tendency, self-regulation, and pro-social behavior. There is a negative correlation between children's smart device immersion tendency and children's self-regulation as well as pro-social behavior; however, there is positive relationship between children's self-regulation and pro-social behavior. Second, children's smart device immersion tendency had a direct effect on children's self-regulation. In addition, children's self-regulation indicated a direct effect on children's pro-social behavior. Third, children's self-regulation was found sufficient to mediate the relationship between children's smart device immersion tendency and pro-social behavior. The results indicate that the effort to increase children's self-regulation may decrease the negative effect toward children's pro-social behavior caused by smart device immersion tendencies.

Associations of smartphone and tablet use in early childhood with psychosocial, cognitive and sleep factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The timing of device use (e.g., whether they were used around bedtime) was measured in one sample (Beyens & Nathanson, 2019;Nathanson & Beyens, 2018a, 2018b. Five studies measured parental perceptions of excessive or problematic use by young children, using various terminology including smartphone addiction proneness (Cho & Lee, 2017), addiction tendency (Lee et al, 2015), over-dependency (Lee & Park, 2018), and immersion tendency (Kim & Hwang, 2017). One study (Hutton et al, 2020) only reported whether a child had access to their own mobile device.…”

“…One study (Hutton et al, 2020) only reported whether a child had access to their own mobile device. Most studies (N = 20; 77%) reported use of both smartphones and tablets, while four included only smartphones (Cho & Lee, 2017;Kim & Hwang, 2017;Lee et al, 2015;Lee & Park, 2018), and two included only tablets (Nathanson & Beyens, 2018b;Neumann, 2014).…”

“…Five studies examined device use and selfregulation. In two studies, regression analyses were used to model device use as a predictor of self-regulation (Lawrence et al, 2020;Nathanson & Beyens, 2018b), while the remaining three studies reversed the direction, modelling self-regulation as a predictor of device use (Kim & Hwang, 2017;Lee & Park, 2018;Levine et al, 2019). Additionally, self-regulation assessed as a facet of child temperament was included as a covariate in van den Heuvel et al (2019) when examining the association between amount of device use and expressive language.…”

Do Mothers’ Educational and Ritualized Reasons for Allowing Their Children to Use Screen Media Affect Children’s Screen Media Regulation Ability via Their Screen Media Time?

“…이와 같은 의례적인 목적으로 유아에게 영상미디어 이용을 허락하는 경우 유아는 주로 혼자 영상미디어를 이용하게 된다 (Kim & Lee, 2019) (Diamond & Lee, 2011). 다수의 선행연구에서는 유아가 영상미디어를 많 이 시청할수록 자기조절능력이 낮은 반면 (Choe et al, 2022;Lawrence et al, 2020;McNeill et al, 2019;Nathanson et al, 2014), 영상미디어 시청시간이 적은 유아의 자기조절능력이 높은 것으로 보고되고 있다 (Cliff et al, 2018) (An & Kang, 2021;Cho et al, 2018;Hwang & Son, 2014;Kim & Hwang, 2017;Kim & Yoo, 2013). (Barr et al, 2010;Beyens & Eggermont, 2014;Nathanson, 2001;Vandewater et al, 2005) (Kim & Lee, 2019;Rideout et al, 2003;Samaha & Hawi, 2017) (Jensen et al, 1997;Kim et al, 2020;Kuss & Griffiths, 2012;Littel et al, 2012;Radesky et al, 2014)…”