Parental Phubbing and Cyberloafing in Chinese Adolescent: The Mediating Roles of Rejection Sensitivity and Loneliness

ABSTRACT With the growing impact of the Internet in the daily life of youth, adolescent cyberloafing has become to be a pressing issue, yet its trigger factors remain underexplored. The current study examined the relationship between parental phubbing and adolescent cyberloafing, as well as the mediating roles of rejection sensitivity and loneliness. A total of 951 Chinese adolescents ( M age = 14.84, SD age = 1.51, 51.4% female) completed anonymous questionnaires measuring parental phubbing, rejection sensitivity, loneliness and adolescent cyberloafing. Data analysis showed that parental phubbing was significantly positively associated with adolescent cyberloafing and that rejection sensitivity and loneliness played important mediating roles in this relationship. Additionally, rejection sensitivity and loneliness mediated the relationship between parental phubbing and adolescent cyberloafing not only in parallel but also sequentially. This study furthers our understanding of how parental phubbing affects adolescent cyberloafing and has important implications for prevention and intervention of adolescent cyberloafing.