Objectives: With the recent rise in smartphone media usage, phubbing—the act of ignoring people around oneself due to excessive smartphone use, whether intentional or not—has emerged as a growing concern. This study focused on parents’ phubbing within the family system and aimed to examine how children’s perceptions of parental phubbing affect their mental health.Methods: The participants were 540 children in grades 4th to 6th of elementary school. Data were collected through convenience sampling from both central cities and surrounding areas across six major metropolitan regions in South Korea between August and September 2024. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 23.0, including descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and the APIM.Results: First, significant actor effects were identified between child’s perceptions of parental phubbing and their positive emotional expressiveness. Second, a significant partner effect was observed between maternal phubbing and father’s positive emotional expressiveness. Third, paternal phubbing had a significant direct effect on child’s depressive symptoms, whereas maternal phubbing did not show a similar direct effect. Fourth, child’s perceptions of parental positive emotional expressiveness mediated the relationship between perceived parental phubbing and depressive symptoms.Conclusion: This study reveals that excessive parental smartphone use may weaken emotional connections between parents and children, negatively impacting children's mental health. These findings suggest that phubbing, a widespread social phenomenon associated with increased smartphone media use, can have serious consequences within the family. Promoting wise and discerning smartphone media use across generations is essential for enhancing children's mental well-being and fostering stable parent-child relationships.
Lee et al. (Fri,) studied this question.