ABSTRACT

The Effects of Mothers'' Smart Phone
Addiction on their
Toddlers'' Smart Phone use

Kim, Ji Young
Major in Early Childhood Education
Graduate School of Education
Gachon University


The purpose of this study was to investigate the influences of mothers'' smartphone addiction tendencies on the smartphone usage of their young children.
Subjects of this study were 450 mothers whose children, aged from three to five, went to eleven kindergartens in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do. A total of 433 surveys were finally analyzed for the research except non-response ones. Smartphone addiction tendencies scale made up of sub-scales of abnormal absorption, life disorder, loss of control, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Reliability coefficients of the whole smartphone addiction tendencies scale was Cronbach''s α=.970; the reliability coefficients of sub-scales were abnormal absorption .953, life disorder .936, loss of control .910, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms .936.
Data were carried out using the SPSS WIN 21.0 Program for analyzing descriptive statistics, cross analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson''s Correlation Analysis, and regression analysis. Results of this study are as follows.
First, there were significant differences in the time using the smartphone at a time and a mainly using time of the smartphone, changes of the time using the smartphone, preferred contents of the smartphone according to the ''age''. Significant differences according to the ''birth order'' between people who learned the usage of the smartphone and decisions of using the smartphone were found. Also, there were significant differences in the reasons of using the smartphone according to the ''age'' and the ''birth order''.
Second, in terms of differences in mothers'' smartphone addiction tendencies based on their usage patterns of the smartphone, mothers'' addiction tendencies to higher degrees than the average of the addiction was related to the obsessive-compulsive symptoms and loss of control. In addition, there were significant differences in mothers'' smartphone usage patters and users'' satisfaction.
Third, in terms of relationship between mothers'' smartphone addiction tendencies and their young children''s smartphone usage patterns, mothers'' loss of control and obsessive-compulsive symptoms of the smartphone were negatively related with ''young children''s beginning time of the smartphone'' and ''young children''s usage period of the smartphone'', as well as were positively related with ''young children''s time using the smartphone at a time'' and ''young children''s changes of the time using the smartphone''.
Forth, mothers'' smartphone addiction tendencies were significantly influenced on their young children''s smartphone usage patterns. Young children''s beginning of the smartphone and usage period were mainly explained by their mothers'' smartphone addiction tendencies. Specifically young children''s beginning times were significantly influenced by their mothers'' loss of control over their smartphone.