A longitudinal network analysis of parental responses to adolescents' negative emotions and adolescent social media doomscrolling.

Abstract

Parental emotion socialization has been closely linked to various adolescent risk behaviors on social media; however, the interactive mechanisms between parental responses to adolescents' negative emotions (PR) and social media doomscrolling (SD) remain unclear. A network analysis method considering time-varying effects was used to describe the structural characteristics and dynamic interactions between PR and SD. A total of 2873 adolescents participated at both measurement occasions. Cross-sectional network analysis indicated that emotion-focused response was the most central node in the PR network, tolerance emerged as the central node in the SD network, and conflict functioned as a key bridge node in the contemporaneous network of PR and SD. Cross-lagged network analysis revealed that earlier punitive responses predicted increases in subsequent parental distress reactions and adolescents' withdrawal symptoms during doomscrolling. Furthermore, higher levels of earlier salience were associated with increased tolerance and relapse and reduced parental expressive encouragement at the later time point. These findings enrich the understanding of the topological features and temporal associations between PR and SD, offering implications for family-based interventions to address doomscrolling in the digital era.