ArticleFrontiers in psychology2025
"Just a second, mommy's here": the impact of mothers' smartphone use on children's affect regulation and the quality of mother-child interactions.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Maternal Smartphone Use and Regulatory Disorders of the Infant: A Post Hoc Analysis of the SKKIPPI Cohort Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Digital Health in Early Childhood: A Cross-Sectional Study of Pediatricians' Knowledge, Practices, and Training Needs in Northern Italy.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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Abstract
Introduction: The ubiquity of smartphone devices in our everyday lives has been widely recognized as a potential challenge to the quality of parent-child interactions. The aim of this study was to experimentally examine the effects of mothers' smartphone use on their children's affect regulation and on the quality of mother-child interactions, indicated by emotional availability of the dyad and maternal responsiveness. Additionally, we investigated the associations between mothers' behaviors to maintain contact with their children during smartphone use and their children's affect regulation. Methods: The experiment consisted of two counterbalanced phases: the free play phase and the interruption phase, in which mothers were replying to standardized text messages in the presence of their children. The sample comprised 52 mothers and their children aged 5 to 6 months (24 female). Results: Infants expressed less positive affect in the interruption phase than in the free play phase, as well as more negative affect in the interruption phase when the free play phase preceded the interruption phase. In addition, the mothers showed less sensitivity and responded to less infants' signals and in a slower way in the interruption phase than in the free play phase. Moreover, mothers showed less optimal structuring, and children showed less well involvement of their mothers in the interruption phase than in the free play phase. Lastly, more children's negative affect was associated with a shorter duration of mothers' smartphone use and more active mothers' behaviors to maintain contact with their children during the smartphone use. Discussion: These results suggest that, although mothers adapt smartphone use based on their children's affective response, mothers' repeated smartphone use negatively impacts their children's affect regulation and the quality of the mother-child interactions, with potentially negative consequences for the children's social-emotional development.
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