Associations Between Parental Maltreatment and Online Behavior Among Young Adolescents

Deviant behavior of adolescents in the online world has emerged as a serious social issue in South Korea. Given the urgent need to address new forms of risks related to technological advancement such as the Internet, this study examined the mechanisms of online deviant behavior among adolescents guided by general strain theory. Two waves of the nationally representative Korean Children and Youth Panel Study (N = 2184; M_age = 13.6 years) were used. The study examines whether the association between parental maltreatment (7^th grade) and online deviant behavior (8^th grade) is mediated by depression (8^th grade), and further whether the mediating effect of depression (8^th grade) on online deviant behavior (8^th grade) is moderated by mobile phone dependency (8^th grade). Depression mediated the relationship between parental maltreatment and online deviant behavior in the following year. A significant indirect and negative effect of parental maltreatment on online deviant behavior through depression was observed when levels of mobile phone dependency were low and moderate but not when mobile phone dependency was high. The findings demonstrated that adolescent’s depression and mobile phone dependency represent a key mechanism in determining the association between parental maltreatment and online deviant behavior. However, these findings may not be applicable for youth with the highest levels of mobile phone dependency.