“Good Me” and “Bad Me” Function in the Relationship Between Child Neglect and Adolescents’ Social Networking Addiction

Abstract

This two-wave longitudinal research aims to investigate the temporal relationship of child neglect on adolescents’ social networking addiction through the mediating mechanism of inferiority and the moderating effect of self-compassion and left-behind status. A total of 629 Chinese students completed self-reported questionnaires in the surveys. This research employed R software to conduct data analysis. The research findings suggested that child neglect may function as a risk factor of social networking addiction, along with inferiority as a mediating mechanism. Self-compassion is identified as a protective factor that may interrupt this developmental cascade from neglect to addiction. Left-behind status difference was not observed, suggesting the universal applicability of these associations across diverse youth populations, regardless of disadvantaged position.