Helicopter parenting, self-control, and problematic online gaming in emerging adults

This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of self-control on the relationship between perceived helicopter parental attitudes and problematic online gaming among emerging-adult online gamers. 186 gamers from Turkey were reached using a cross-sectional online survey. According to the results obtained in this study, self-control was negatively associated with problematic online gaming and perceived paternal helicopter parenting attitudes. Also, problematic online gaming was positively correlated with perceived maternal helicopter parenting attitude. It was further found that age, gender, and having previous psychiatric diagnosis were significantly related to problematic online gaming. Age had a positive significant correlation with problematic online gaming whereas those who reported having previous psychiatric diagnosis and male respondents also stated higher levels of problematic online gaming. Lastly, mothers were significantly perceived as having higher helicopter parental attitudes compared to fathers. However, the indirect effect was found significant only at paternal level. Thus, it can be concluded that the indirect effect was due to the tendency for those who perceived higher paternal helicopter parenting attitude to have lower levels of self-control, which in turn resulted in higher levels of problematic online gaming. This study offers novel insight into online gaming research, indicating that perceived paternal helicopter parenting attitude may lead to developing problematic online gaming among emerging adult children with low self-control.