Examining Academic Regulatory Skill to Explain the Relationship Between Overparenting and Emerging Adults’ Social Media Addiction and Display of Risque Content

How does parenting relate to emerging adults’ social media behavior? This study investigates whether the academic regulatory skills of emerging adult offspring can explain the relationship between a destructive parenting style (i.e. overparenting) and their potentially harmful use of social media (in terms of both content and frequency). College students (N = 268) completed surveys at three time points over the course of a semester. An overparenting measure was collected at wave 1, an academic emotional regulation questionnaire was collected at wave two, and a risqué content social media measure and a social media frequency measure were collected at wave 3. Mediation modeling then tested the indirect effects between the predictor (overparenting at Time 1) and outcome variables (social media addiction and risqué social media behavior at Time 3) via academic emotion regulation strategies (8 subscales) at Time 2. The relation between overparenting and social media addiction and risqué social media content was fully mediated by one subcomponent of academic dysregulation behavior, venting. Findings provide initial support for academic dysregulation as a mechanism that explains the association between overparenting and problematic sociodigital technology use in emerging adults. Future directions for research and implications of the current study are outlined.