Proceedings of the 7th World Conference on Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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The Relationships between Social Media and Smartphone Addiction in Adolescents and Their Parents’ Neglectful Behaviors in the Pandemic
Büşra Kurtoğlu Karataş, Elif Ayhan, Utku Beyazıt, Aynur Bütün Ayhan
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between social media and smartphone addiction in adolescents and their parents’ neglectful behaviors in the pandemic. The study group consisted of 280 adolescents (135 girls and 145 boys) aged between 11-14 attending secondary schools in the city center of Ankara, Turkey and their parents (214 mothers and 66 fathers). The average age of the adolescents was 12.29±1.16. In terms of the data gathering instruments, an Individual Information Form was administered to both the children and parents for the purpose of gathering socio-demographic data. In addition, adolescents were administered Smartphone Addiction Scale for the purpose of assessing their smartphone addiction levels along with Social Media Addiction Scale for the purpose of assessing their social media addiction levels. On the other hand, the Multidimensional Neglectful Behaviors Scale-Parents Form was administered to the parents in order to assess the level of their neglectful behaviors. Prior to conducting statistical analysis, the relevant assumptions of regression were be tested. For this purpose, the autocorrelation, linearity and normality of the data were examined. As a result, 86.5% (n=218) of adolescents stated that their smartphone use and 78.5% (n=204) stated that their social media use increased during the pandemic period. In the analyses, 38.6% (n=108) of the adolescents were found to be addiction-level smartphone users and 27.5% (n=77) were found to be addiction-level social media users. In addition, it was found that parental neglect levels were positively and highly significantly associated with both smart phone addiction (r=.197, p<.01) and social media addiction (r=.221, p<.01) in adolescents, and there was a positive and highly significant relationship (r=.661, p<.01) between smart phone addiction and social media addiction in adolescents. In the regression test where the age and gender of the child and the age of the parent were included in the analysis as control variables, it was determined that parental neglect predicted smart phone addiction (p<.01) and social media addiction (p<.01). The findings were discussed in line with the related literature.
keywords: Social media, smartphone, adolescent, neglect, pandemic