A Follow-up Study On Parent-child Head-down Behavior And Parent-child Relationship From The Perspective Of Family System Theor

The use of smartphones has contributed to the phenomenon of "phubbing" or looking down at one’s phone.This behavior has also been observed in parent-child interactions,leading scholars to focus on the impact of parental phubbing on parent-child cohesion.While previous studies have primarily focused on parental phubbing,adolescents’ phubbing has received less attention.Both parental and adolescent phubbing can lead to family conflicts and poor parent-child relationships,exacerbating the problem of phubbing in the home.This study aimed to track the relationship between phubbing,parental phubbing,and parent-child cohesion among middle school students using a family systems theory approach.The study investigated the interaction between parental phubbing,parent-child cohesion,and adolescent phubbing and provided recommendations for preventing and reducing adolescent phubbing.As there is currently a lack of self-assessment questionnaires for adolescent phubbing in China,this study translated and revised the "General Phubbing Scale" and recruited 978 participants.The results showed that the revised questionnaire had good reliability and validity with a test-retest reliability of 0.81 and was used in Study2.Study 2 employed a six-month tracking study to explore the relationship between parental phubbing,parent-child cohesion,and middle school students’ phubbing behavior.The Parent-Child Cohesion Questionnaire,Parental Phubbing Questionnaire,and revised General Phubbing Questionnaire were used,and two full-time ordinary middle schools in Zhejiang and Jiangsu were selected for the study.The first measurement was labeled T1,and the second measurement was labeled T2.After removing invalid participants,a total of 444 participants completed both measurements.The results showed that(1)T1 parental phubbing positively predicted T2 middle school students’ phubbing behavior,with T1 maternal phubbing significantly predicting T2 middle school students’ phubbing behavior,and T1 paternal phubbing not predicting T2 middle school students’ phubbing behavior.(2)Parent-child cohesion,father-child cohesion,and mother-child cohesion had a mutually predictive effect on middle school students’ phubbing behavior.(3)There was no mutual predictive effect between parent-child cohesion and parental phubbing.This study found that middle school students’ phubbing behavior is influenced by parental phubbing and parent-child cohesion,and middle school students’ phubbing behavior can also affect the level of parent-child cohesion.These findings enrich the previous research on phubbing in parent-child relationships and highlight the need to strengthen positive interactions between parents and children,improve middle school students’ perception of parent-child intimacy,and pay attention to the impact of parental phubbing.