Parental marital quality and adolescents’ online social addiction: Influences of adolescents’ interpersonal sensitivity and peer relationships

This study explored interpersonal sensitivity and peer relationships as mechanisms in the parental marital quality and adolescents’ online social addiction. Participants were 914 Chinese middle school students (females = 53.39%; mean age = 13.95, SD = 1.89 years). They completed measures of the Marital Adjustment Test, the Interpersonal Relationship Sensitivity Subscale of SCL-90, the Peer Relationships Scale for Children and Adolescents, and the Online Interpersonal Relationship Addiction Scale. Path analysis results showed that higher parental marital quality was associated with lower adolescents’ risk for online social addiction. Interpersonal sensitivity played a partial mediating role in the relationship between adolescents’ parental marital quality and online social addiction, to explain only some of the adolescents’ online social addiction. Peer relationships had a moderating effect on the relationship between adolescents’ parental marital quality and online social addiction so that as peer relationships improved, parental marital quality effects on adolescents’ online social addiction declined. These findings are consistent with social compensation theory and contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that shape adolescent Internet addiction.