Parent-child Technoference and Adolescent Problematic Social Media Use: a Moderated Serial Mediation Model

Due to the widespread use of technology in families today, parent-child technoference-the term for disruptions in parent-child interactions brought on by technology use-has become a prevalent occurrence. Despite the potential adverse effects of parent-child technoference on adolescent problematic social media use (PSMU), the mechanisms behind this link are yet unknown. The current study investigated whether loneliness and maladaptive cognitions serially mediated the relationship between parent-child technoference and adolescent PSMU, and whether adolescent self-compassion moderated this serial mediating process, all within the framework of the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model. 901 Chinese teenagers (M = 15.84, SD = 0.57) filled the self-report questionnaires of parent-child technoference, loneliness, maladaptive cognitions toward social media, self-compassion, and PSMU. Using SPSS PROCESS, a moderated serial mediation model was tested. The results revealed that frequent parent-child technoference was linked to a heightened risk of adolescent PSMU through increased loneliness and maladaptive cognitions. Additionally, self-compassion moderated this mediation pathway in an unexpected direction, rather than showing the anticipated buffering effect, high self-compassion was associated with a stronger link between parent-child technoference and adolescent PSMU via loneliness and maladaptive cognitions. This study contributed to the scarce literature by clarifying the mechanisms behind the correlation between parent-child technoference and adolescent PSMU.