The Relationship between Smartphone Overdependence and Status Delinquency Among Adolescents: The Mediating Effect of School Maladjustment

Background and Purpose: Adolescent smartphone overdependence has emerged as a significant risk factor for status delinquency—behaviors such as underage drinking, smoking, truancy, and running away from home. While these acts are often viewed as minor deviations, they function as a "gateway" to serious criminal behavior. This study posits that the link between smartphone use and delinquency is not direct but is fundamentally driven by the deterioration of social bonds within the school environment. By integrating Social Control Theory and Ecological Systems Theory, this research investigates school maladjustment as the critical mechanism that bridges personal digital habits and externalized problem behaviors.

Methods: A survey was conducted with 1,000 middle and high school students in South Korea, and data from 860 respondents were used for the final analysis. Measurement tools included the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS-SV), a modified school adjustment scale (covering academic, rule-following, and relational dimensions), and a status delinquency index. Data were analyzed using SPSS 29.0 and PROCESS Macro 4.3 (Model 4), with 5,000 bootstrapping iterations to verify the significance of the mediation path.

Results: The analysis revealed that 38.6% of participants were in the smartphone overdependence risk group, and 15.6% had experienced status delinquency in the past year. Although smartphone overdependence initially showed a significant effect on status delinquency (β=.005, p<.05), this direct effect became statistically non-significant when school maladjustment was included in the model (β=.002, p>.05). Critically, school maladjustment was found to fully mediate the relationship, with a significant indirect effect confirmed through bootstrapping (β=.0371, 95% CI [.0121, .0683]). This confirms that smartphone overdependence leads to delinquency primarily by disrupting a student’s academic engagement and social integration within the school.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings underscore that school maladjustment is the pivotal linkin the progression from digital overdependence to delinquency. This implies that simply restricting smartphone use is insufficient; social work interventions must prioritize restoring "school bond" and academic adaptation. We propose integrated policy measures that link media addiction recovery with school dropout prevention. Practical strategies, including school-based mentoring and family-centered communication programs are essential to re-establish the social safety net and prevent the transition to more serious criminal behavior.

Keywords: adolescents, smartphone Overdependence, school maladjustment, status delinquency, full mediation effect