A scoping review of the impact of parental phubbing on child developmental outcomes

With digital devices increasingly embedded in everyday family life, parental phubbing (parents’ distraction to their child during face-to-face interactions because of mobile phone use) has emerged as an important topic in educational and family studies. However, existing research has largely focused on the impact of parental phubbing on adolescents, and the terminology and operational definitions vary. In response, this scoping review aims to map and synthesize the empirical evidence on the association between parental phubbing and early childhood developmental outcomes, focusing on children aged 0 to 8 years. Generally, our main research questions are as follows: RQ1. How has parental phubbing been conceptualized and operationalized across different methodological approaches, and what measurement tools have been employed? RQ2. What developmental outcomes have been examined, and what patterns of associations (directions and consistency) are reported across outcome domains. RQ3. What mechanisms and contextual factors have been examined to explain the relationship between parental phubbing and young children’s developmental outcomes? As anticipated, the outputs of this scoping review include: (1) an evidence map of outcome domains and study designs; (2) an overview of commonly used terminology, measures/experimental manipulations, and operational definitions; (3) a synthesis of examined mechanisms and contextual factors; (4) identification of knowledge gaps and recommendations for future research.