Insecure parental attachment, bullying perpetration and victimization, and social media addiction: A meta-analytic test of an interpersonal pathway

Abstract

Social media addiction (SMA) has become a public health concern, yet its relationships with offline relational insecurity and bullying-related social threats remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on social compensation theory and the maladaptive schema model, the present meta-analysis examined whether insecure parental attachment (PA) associated with SMA directly and indirectly through bullying perpetration and victimization (BPV). We synthesized associations among PA, BPV and SMA, and tested a theory-based mediation model using meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM). Across 226 reports (443 effect sizes; total N = 370,201), three-level mixed-effects models indicated significant positive associations between PA and BPV (ρ ̂ = .236; k = 105), PA and SMA (ρ ̂ = .256; k = 61), and BPV and SMA (ρ ̂ = .301; k = 60). MASEM supported an indirect pathway from PA to SMA via BPV (ind = .057, p < .001), accounting for 29.60% of the total effect; the direct path from PA to SMA was also significant after BPV was included (c’ = .136, p < .01). Moderator analyses suggested that effect sizes varied with change of characteristics of PA and BPV (e.g., PA type, PA figure, and BPV type), although the overall pattern of findings was robust across bias and sensitivity analysis. These findings support a relational pathway in which insecure PA may be linked to SMA partly through exposure to bullying-related social threats.