The association between parental depression and adolescent’s Internet addiction in South Korea

Abstract

BackgroundA number of risk factors for Internet addiction among adolescents have been identified to be associated with their behavior, familial, and parental factors. However, few studies have focused on the relationship between parental mental health and Internet addiction among adolescents. Therefore, we investigated the association between parental mental health and children’s Internet addiction by controlling for several risk factors.MethodsThis study used panel data collected by the Korea Welfare Panel Study in 2012 and 2015. We focused primarily on the association between Internet addiction which was assessed by the Internet Addiction Scale (IAS) and parental depression which was measured with the 11-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. To analyze the association between parental depression and log-transformed IAS, we conducted multiple regression analysis after adjusting for covariates.ResultsAmong 587 children, depressed mothers and fathers comprised 4.75 and 4.19%, respectively. The mean IAS score of the adolescents was 23.62 ± 4.38. Only maternal depression (β = 0.0960, p = 0.0033) showed higher IAS among children compared to nonmaternal depression. Strongly positive associations between parental depression and children’s Internet addiction were observed for high maternal education level, adolescents’ gender, and adolescent’s academic performance.ConclusionsMaternal depression is related to children’s Internet addiction; particularly, mothers who had graduated from the university level or above, male children, and children’s normal or better academic performance show the strongest relationship with children’s Internet addiction.

Prevalence and factors associated with depression among the mothers of school-going children in Dhaka city, Bangladesh: A multi stage sampling-based study

“…However, a very recent study revealed problematic phone use was positively associated with time spent with children during meals, but it was significantly and positively associated with technology interference in 9 of 11 parenting domains (e.g., playtime, mealtime, and playtime excursions) and maternal depression was associated with problematic phone usage, which in turn was associated with technology interference in parenting [ 34 ]. Lastly, we found children's internet addiction is associated with the mother's depression as a recent South Korean study aligns with our findings [ 35 ].…”

“…spent with children during meals, but it was significantly and positively associated with technology interference in 9 of 11 parenting domains (e.g., playtime, mealtime, and playtime excursions) and maternal depression was associated with problematic phone usage, which in turn was associated with technology interference in parenting [34]. Lastly, we found children's internet addiction is associated with the mother's depression as a recent South Korean study aligns with our findings [35]. Due to study design, the opposite direction of association needs to be considered as mothers with depression have poorer quality interactions, are less emotionally available, and can negatively report their children's behavior [36,37,38].…”

Joint effects of children’s emotional problems and parental depressive symptoms on the occurrence of internet gaming disorder among children and adolescents: A longitudinal study

“…Parental depression has been related to children's IGD in a population sample in Hong Kong (Lam, 2015), and has been associated with negative impacts relating to IGD in Korean adolescents (Choi et al, 2018). However, these findings were derived from cross-sectional surveys in which temporal relationships could not be determined between parental depression and IGD in children (Lam, 2015).…”

“…There are several empirical evidences on the problematic behavior in children and adolescents that have been associated with mental health problems in their parents (Burleigh, Stavropoulos, Liew, Adams, & Griffiths, 2018;Erceg et al, 2018;Loechner et al, 2020;Paquin et al, 2020). Especially parental depression plays a significant role in the development of IGD among children and adolescents (Choi, Chun, Lee, Han, & Park, 2018;Lam, 2015).…”

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“…Addictive tendencies of Internet use have been empirically investigated in a variety of contexts. Various samples have been studied, including medical students (Zhang, Lim, Lee, & Ho, 2017), college students in China (Shao et al, 2018), and adolescents in South Korea (Choi, Chun, Lee, Han, & Park, 2018). Past research indicated that as tendencies of shyness increase, addictive tendencies of Internet use increase to reduce feelings of loneliness (Ang, Chan, & Lee, 2017).…”