This study has attempted to investigate characteristics by the smartphone addiction level against mothers of infants, figuring out the effect of parenting stress and self-control on smartphone addiction and verify the mediating effect of self-control ...
This study has attempted to investigate characteristics by the smartphone addiction level against mothers of infants, figuring out the effect of parenting stress and self-control on smartphone addiction and verify the mediating effect of self-control in parenting stress-smartphone addiction relations.
For this, 359 mothers of infants (aged 0-36 months) in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gyeongbuk have been examined using smartphone addiction proneness scale, parenting stress index and self-control scale. The collected data have been analyzed through reliability analysis, frequency analysis, t-test, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, regression analysis and multiple regression analysis. Then, the following results have been obtained:
First, in terms of smartphone addiction, mothers from a risk group accounted for 9.7% (35 people) while mothers from a general user group accounted for 90.3% (324 people). According to analysis on socio-demographic factors between the two groups, mothers from a risk group were significantly higher than the mothers from a general user group in terms of the period of smartphone use (length of daily smartphone use as well). In terms of the use of game applications, mothers from a risk group were also significantly higher than mothers from a general user group. In addition, mothers of infants tend to frequently use following smartphone functions; phone call, SMS, SNS and the Internet surfing.
Second, according to analysis on differences between parenting stress and self-control in mothers from a risk group and mothers from a general user group, the former was significantly higher than the latter in terms of parenting stress. In terms of self-control, however, the former was lower than the latter.
Third, according to analysis on the effect of parenting stress and self-control on smartphone addiction, the influence of parenting stress on smartphone addiction was 11% while self-control was about 15% in terms of the level of influence on smartphone addiction.
Lastly, it’s been proven that self-control had a mediating effect partially on parenting stress and smartphone addiction. Based on the results of this study, it’s been confirmed that parenting stress in mothers of infants children could have an effect on smartphone addiction. In addition, it’s been found that self-control plays a mediating role in self-control and smartphone addiction.