The current study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of how interpersonal relationships relieve adolescents’ problematic mobile phone use (PMPU) and to examine the potential mediating roles of loneliness and motivation to use mobile phones. Four thousand five hundred and nine middle school students from four provinces in China were recruited to participate in the investigation. The results showed that the parent–child relationship but not the teacher–student relationship, had a direct and negative effect on PMPU. The parent–child relationship had indirect effects on PMPU through the mediators of loneliness, escape motivation and relationship motivation; the teacher–student relationship had indirect effects on PMPU only through the mediating factors of loneliness and escape motivation. Both parent–child and teacher–student relationships indirectly affected PMPU through a two-step path from loneliness to escape motivation. These findings highlight the more salient role of the parent–child relationship than that of the teacher–student relationship in directly alleviating PMPU and indicate that satisfying interpersonal relationships can buffer adolescents’ PMPU by lowering their loneliness and motivation to use mobile phones.

Student engagement, consisting of behavioural, cognitive, and emotional components, has been proven to influence both academic success and psychological well-being. To examine the linkages among the three aspects of academic engagement, a sample of 789 Chinese primary school students (47% girls; 39% 3rd graders, 31% 4th graders, 30% 5th graders) completed the Mathematics Engagement Scale at three 6-month intervals over the course of 1.5 years. Results indicated that the effects of behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement amplified and influenced one another over time. Specifically, behavioural engagement stably predicted cognitive and emotional engagement over time, but the prediction of cognitive engagement on emotional engagement was not consistent from T1 to T2 and from T2 to T3. In addition, emotional engagement significantly predicted behavioural and cognitive engagement only from T2 to T3. These findings support academic engagement as multidimensional construct and advance the understanding of its internal dynamical and continuous developmental interrelations.

This longitudinal study examined the reciprocal relationship between parental active mediation, parent-child relationships, and children’s problematic mobile phone use (PMPU). A sample of 258 primary school students in Beijing, China, completed self-report questionnaires at three time points, with a one-semester interval (a six-month gap) between each measurement wave. The cross-lagged model test results revealed that parental active mediation may help reduce children’s PMPU, whereas the corresponding reverse path from PMPU to parental active mediation was nonsignificant. There was a reciprocal negative relationship between parent-child relationships and children’s PMPU. Parental active mediation had a positive effect on parent-child relationships, yet the corresponding reverse path from parent-child relationships to parental active mediation was nonsignificant. Overall, this study described a dynamic picture of children’s PMPU, suggesting both a parent-driven process and a child-driven process in the prediction of children’s PMPU. Our findings provide theoretical and practical implications to prevent or reduce children’s engagement in PMPU.