Ricerc@Sapienza

Internet addiction is a relatively new and rapidly growing phenomenon that has been increasingly discussed within the clinical and developmental field, especially among adolescents (Kuss et al., 2014). Previous studies have emphasized the direct role of effective parental monitoring in reducing youth's internet addiction (Lin, Lin & Wu, 2009). However, there is also evidence suggesting that adolescents' self-regulatory mechanisms (i.e. effortful control) may mitigate the potential negative association between parental
monitoring and internet addiction (Ding et al., 2017). Despite these findings, to our knowledge, there are no previous studies that have investigated whether and how parental monitoring predict the initial level and rate of change in adolescents' internet addiction across Italian families.
Based on the above-mentioned theoretical premises, the general aim of this study is to examine whether and how parental monitoring predicts the initial level and rate of change in adolescents¿ internet addiction through the moderating role of adolescent's effortful control. More specific, the proposed study aims (1) to investigate the association between parental monitoring (i.e. child disclosure,
parental solicitation, and parental control) and internet addiction in Italian adolescents; (2) to analyze the moderating role of adolescents' effortful control (i.e. activational, attention and inhibitory control) in the relationship between parental monitoring and adolescents' internet addiction; and (3) to explore whether and how parental monitoring will predict the rate of change in young adults' internet addiction through the moderating role of effortful control at two time points (T1; Youth's age = 18; T2; Youths' age =19 - 20). As regards the expected results, we hypothesize that greater parental monitoring, as a positive parenting characteristic, will predict a faster drop in young adults¿ IA.