Network analysis of parental involvement, parent-child relationships, emotional and behavioral problems, and social media addiction in adolescents

Adolescence is a critical developmental period during which parental involvement, parent-child relationships, emotional and behavioral problems, and social media addiction may interact in complex ways. This study aims to explore the network structure of these factors to identify key domains and their interconnections. A total of 668 adolescents participated in this study, with data collected in October 2024 through surveys. The Parental Involvement Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Parent-Child Closeness Scale, and Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) were used to assess parental involvement, emotional and behavioral problems, parent-child relationships, and social media addiction, respectively. Two network analysis approaches were applied: Regularized Partial Correlation Network (RPCN) and Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). In the RPCN, 'emotional and leisure' emerged as the central domain, playing a crucial role in the network structure. Additionally, 'Social media addiction' is the strongest bridging symptom, followed by 'Parental-child relationship'. The DAG analysis revealed that 'emotional and leisure' acted as the activation domain, with high probabilities of influencing conduct problems (0.92) and social media addiction (0.85), highlighting its key role. Conduct problems and social media addiction were identified as more dependent on other symptoms in the network. The findings highlight the key domains influencing adolescent emotional and behavioral issues and social media addiction. Understanding these network structures provides valuable insights for developing targeted interventions to promote adolescent well-being and healthy parent-child interactions.