The impact of parenting style, temperament and character on problematic internet and smartphone use among non-clinical female adolescents.

It is known that various temperament and character dimensions, and parenting styles could be associated with problematic internet and smartphone use. This study aimed to examine the association between temperament, character, and parenting styles and problematic smartphone and internet use in nonclinical female teenagers. 244 nonclinical female adolescent were included the study. Young's Internet Addiction Test Short Form, Smartphone Addiction Scale, Junior Temperament and Character Inventory and Parenting Style Scale were used for collecting data. Problematic smartphone use was significantly negatively correlated with cooperativeness character type, strictness/supervision, and acceptance/involvement subscales of the parenting style scale. A significant correlation was found between problematic internet use and acceptance/involvement, strictness/supervision subscales of Parenting Style Scale. In ANOVA analysis, it was found that the authoritative parenting style was associated with less problematic use, and the neglectful, authoritarian, and indulgent parenting styles were associated with increased problematic use. A negative correlation was found between the cooperativeness character style and problematic smartphone use. According to our results, parenting style is more important for problematic internet and smartphone use among female adolescents than temperament and character.