Peer-reviewed article
A longitudinal network analysis of parental responses to adolescents' negative emotions and adolescent social media doomscrolling.
Tan D, Zhang R, Yang L ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how parents respond to their adolescents' negative emotions and how these responses relate to social media doomscrolling (compulsive consumption of negative online content). Using network analysis on data from 2,873 adolescents measured at two time points, the researchers found that punitive parental responses predicted increases in parental distress and adolescent withdrawal symptoms during doomscrolling. The study shows that certain parental responses, such as tolerance and emotional focus, play central roles in the relationship between parental emotion socialization and adolescent doomscrolling behavior.
Key points
- Emotion-focused parental responses were the most central feature in the parental response network
- Tolerance emerged as the central characteristic in the doomscrolling network
- Punitive parental responses predicted later increases in parental distress reactions and adolescent withdrawal symptoms
- Higher parental salience earlier was associated with increased tolerance and relapse, and reduced expressive encouragement later
- Conflict functioned as a bridge between parental responses and adolescent doomscrolling behaviors
Limitations
The study does not specify the country or countries where the research was conducted, nor does it provide detail on the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. The network analysis approach, while novel, may not fully capture causality or the complex psychological mechanisms underlying the relationships observed.
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.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Parental responses to adolescents' negative emotions (emotion-focused, punitive, tolerance-based, and other approaches)
- Population
- 2,873 adolescents assessed at two time points
Key finding
Punitive parental responses predicted increases in subsequent parental distress reactions and adolescent withdrawal symptoms during doomscrolling
D et al. · Europe PMC · 1 Oct 2026