“I Do Not See Eye to Eye With My Parents”: Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies in Parental Phubbing Report and Adolescent Health-Related Outcomes

Abstract

Parental phubbing, the act of parents moving their attention to their smartphone instead of engaging with their children, has been associated with negative consequences for adolescents′ health. However, most studies rely on single informant reports, which do not account for both parents and adolescents′ perceptions of the behavior and can provide biased results. Based on the Operations Triad Model, this cross-sectional study examines the association between parent–adolescent discrepancies in parental phubbing and adolescents′ life satisfaction and problematic smartphone use (PSU), mediated by parent-adolescent connection and controlling for parental PSU. A convenience sample of 372 Italian adolescents (49.2% girls, Mage = 11.9 ± 0.85) and their parents (83.6% mothers, Mage = 45.3 ± 5.19) completed two separate online surveys. Data were analyzed using a latent difference score model. Findings show that parents and adolescents perceive parental phubbing in different ways, with parents reporting higher levels than adolescents. Furthermore, parent–adolescent discrepancies showed distinct association patterns with the study variables. Specifically, adolescents overreporting of their parents′ phubbing was directly and positively associated with parent-adolescent connection and adolescents’ life satisfaction, but not with adolescent PSU, whereas adolescents underreporting showed the opposite pattern of association. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of adopting multiple information sources when studying family relationships and provide useful insights for practitioners and researchers.