Psychological Development and Education ›› 2021, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (1): 137-145.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2021.01.17

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The Impact of Parental Phubbing on the Psychological Development of Children and Adolescents

JIANG Qianyun1, WANG Xingchao2, LIU Bing3, WANG Pengcheng1, LEI Li1   

  1. 1. Department of psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872;
    2. School of Educational Science, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006;
    3. Gan Ma Senior High School, Lianyungang 222124
  • Published:2021-01-22

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Abstract: Parents phubbing is the behavior that parents pay much attention on smartphones while taking care of their children or communicating with them. By reviewing the relevant studies, it is found that parental phubbing has a variety of adverse effects on their children, such as reducing the quality of parent-child relationship, increasing the risk of accidental injury, impairing interpersonal skills, and increasing problem behaviors. Previous studies mainly use the displacement hypothesis, the theory of multitasking, and the attachment theory to explain these effects. In the future research, we should distinguish neighborhood concepts, improve measurement methods and research methods, explore children's perceptions of parents phubbing, and examine the possible positive impact of mobile devices on parent-child interaction.

Key words: parental phubbing, parent-child relationship, the displacement hypothesis, multitasking, attachment theory

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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