How parental mediation relates to digital device use in primary and secondary school students: evidence for the statistical mediation of parent-child interaction quality.

Introduction: Digital device use has become increasingly common among children and adolescents, making it important to understand how parental mediation strategies relate to students' device-use behaviors and the family relational context in which such behaviors occur. Methods: This cross-sectional, multi-informant questionnaire study examined associations among parental mediation strategies, parent-child interaction quality, and students' digital device use. Participants were 1,235 paired primary and secondary school students in Grades 4-8 and their parents from Tianfu New Area, Chengdu, China. Descriptive statistics, group comparisons, correlation analyses, mediation models, and path analysis were used to examine the focal variables. Results: Digital device use was widespread and often began in early childhood. Restrictive mediation was associated with lower device-use time, less entertainment-oriented content, and less intensive use habits, whereas co-use and active mediation were positively associated with better parent-child interaction quality. Parent-child interaction quality showed significant statistical mediation in the associations of co-use, active mediation, and restrictive mediation with overall digital device use. Discussion: Because the data were cross-sectional, the findings should be interpreted as relational rather than causal. Overall, the results highlight the family relational context in which parental mediation is linked to children's digital device use.