Parent-child communication about internet use and acceptance of parental authority

Structural equation modeling is applied to investigate how parents' communication with their child about his or her Internet use is linked to the child's acceptance of parental authority in the context of Internet use, and how this in turn is linked to the child's social media behavior. This study surveyed children aged 13 to 18 and their mothers and fathers (N = 357 families) and found that acceptance of parental authority is a key factor in the effectiveness of parental mediation. It is recommended that parental mediation is studied as a dynamic process shaped by both parents and children

The influence of social networking, video games and general computer usage on parent-child relations

The aim of this project was to find out how parents feel about controlling the media/technology use of their adolescent children and how it influences their parent/child relations. This is important because modern entertainment technologies are easily accessible and available to the population; thus they inevitably invade family space and influence family life. A gap in the literature is identified, indicating that existing research does not explore the reasons why parents control or do not control their adolescent children’s use of social media, video games and more. Additionally, there was no literature concerning how parents feel about such control and whether it was part of emotional labour; that being any activities that are performed with a child’s well-being in mind. The project was carried out as the part of an undergraduate degree course by the final year student in sociology. The data was collected through face-to-face and telephone semi-structured interviews with mothers and fathers of adolescents. It was observed that both mothers and fathers felt their control over children’s use of media and technologies influenced their relations. Also the findings show a variety of reasons why parents choose to exercise their control in a particular way, and how it links to parent-child relations

Adolescents' privacy on social network sites: an investigation of predictors of privacy protection behavior

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Digital Competence and Family Mediation in the Perception of Online Risk to Adolescents. Analysis of the Montenegro Case Study

Da diversi anni il dibattito scientifico e politico internazionale ha manifestato un interesse sempre più crescente sulla digital literacy e la digital education, quali strumenti di tutela del minore rispetto ai rischi derivanti dall’utilizzo incontrollato e inconsapevole di diversi mezzi di comunicazione. Contemporaneamente, diversi filoni della letteratura scientifica hanno approfondito i temi dei rischi e delle opportunità legate all’utilizzo della rete, da cui spesso sono stati promossi interventi territoriali politici, di sensibilizzazione o di formazione per arginare gli effetti potenzialmente nocivi e incrementare quelli positivi, legati soprattutto alle opportunità di crescita individuale e di inclusione socioculturale che le tecnologie possono contribuire a determinare. Il paper si inserisce all’interno di questo quadro per riflettere sul modo in cui il possesso o meno di alcune competenze digitali possa influenzare o meno il comportamento di fruizione mediale dei giovani, incrementando o meno il rischio di esposizione mediale all’interno di un contesto socioculturale circoscritto. Per intraprendere questo tipo di riflessione, il paper focalizza la propria attenzione sul caso di studio del Montenegro e analizza alcuni risultati della ricerca Eukids on line del 2016, per riflettere sulla relazione fra competenze digitali e livello di rischio espositivo dei bambini compresi fra i 9 e i 17 anni all’interno di aree territoriali socioculturali circoscritte.For several years, international scientific and political debate has shown increasing interest in digital literacy and digital education as tools to protect minors from the risks associated with the unmonitored and unaware use of various media. At the same time, various strains in the scientific literature have more deeply analyzed the themes of the risks and opportunities associated with using the web; this has often resulted in the promotion of political, awareness-raising, or educational interventions on the local level, to contain the potentially harmful effects and augment the positive ones linked especially to the opportunities for individual growth and sociocultural inclusion that these technologies can help bring about. This paper enters into this framework to explore how whether or not digital competence is possessed can influence young people’s media use behaviour, while increasing or not increasing the risk of media exposure within a circumscribed sociocultural context. To undertake this kind of reflection, this paper focuses its attention on the Montenegro case study and analyzes some results of the 2016 Global kids on line research work, to consider the relationship between digital competence and the exposure risk level of children between 12 and 17 years of age within circumscribed sociocultural areas

Control Challenges Parents Experience When Monitoring Adolescents\u27 Internet and Social Media Use

Abstract The ubiquitous nature of social media/internet use among adolescents in the United States has become a concern for parents due to risks to safety (e.g., sexual predators), emotional and psychological wellbeing (e.g., cyberbullying), academic achievement (e.g., poor grades), and physical health (e.g., sedentary lifestyle/obesity) faced by unsupervised youth with unlimited access to digital media. Parents readily acknowledge the importance of monitoring their adolescents’ social media/internet use; however, studies have documented their failure to do so. For various reasons, parents encounter challenges in their attempts to keep children safe such as adolescents’ desire for independence, lack of parental digital skills, and the secretive nature of social media and digital world writ large. This qualitative study explored parents’ perceptions of challenges experienced while monitoring their adolescent’s social media/internet use. Guided by the parental mediation theory for the digital age, 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents of adolescents who used social media/internet. Data were analyzed through coding and themes. Participants shared their experiences monitoring their adolescents’ social media/internet use, revealing concerns about lack of parental interest, early monitoring, communicating with adolescents, building trust, and app use and parental controls. These findings have implications for positive social change, as the findings can inform training programs developed by school administrators to assist parents’ efforts to keep children safe while enhancing academic performance

Families and Social Media Use: The Role of Parents' Perceptions about Social Media Impact on Family Systems in the Relationship between Family Collective Efficacy and Open Communication

Communication through social media characterizes modern lifestyles and relationships, including family interactions. The present study aims at deepening the role that parents’ perceptions about social media effects on family systems can exert within their family functioning, specifically referring to the relationship between collective family efficacy and open communications within family systems with adolescents. A questionnaire to detect the openness of family communications, thecollectivefamilyefficacyandtheperceptionsabouttheimpactsofsocialmediaonfamilysystems wasadministeredto227Italianparentswhohadoneormoreteenagechildren,andwhouseFacebook and WhatsApp to communicate with them. From the results, these perceptions emerge as a mediator in the relationship between the collective family efficacy and the openness of communications, suggestingthatitisnotonlytheactualimpactofsocialmediaonfamilysystemsthatmattersbutalso parents’ perceptions about it and how much they feel able to manage their and their children’s social media use without damaging their family relationships. Thus, the need to foster parents’ positive perceptions about social media’s potential impact on their family relationships emerges. A strategy could be the promotion of knowledge on how to functionally use social media

Parenting in Digital Era: a Systematic Literature Review

Abstract Parental care has a significant influence on children’s digital technology use (Ozgür, 2016 ; Valcke, Bonte, De Wever & Rots, 2010). The purpose of this literature review is to know the characteristics of the participants of the articles, the type of measurement, the type of digital parenting and the digital parenting determinant factors. The method used is a systematic literature review. The article search was done online by using the keywords “digital parenting” and/or “parental mediation of internet use”. A total of 20 articles in the period of 2011-2020 were used to carry out this literature review taken from Sagehub, Science Direct, Ebscohost and Proquest Dissertation. The results of the literature review show that most of the participants in these articles are parents who have children from childhood to adolescence and come from Caucasian races. The measuring instrument used in the quantitative approach is a questionnaire on parental mediation of internet use from previous studies or a questionnaire that has been modified according to the research setting. Meanwhile, the interview method and focus group discussion were used for the qualitative approach. The types of parental mediation of internet use that appear are active parental mediation, restrictive parental mediation, monitoring parental mediation, supportive parental mediation, and co-use/co-viewing parental mediation. While the role of parental mediation of internet use is mostly a dependent variable, in several articles it acts as a predictor variable. This shows the existence of internal factors and external factors that affect parental mediation in parents. The results of this literature review can be a foothold for other researchers who are interested in conducting research on digital parenting of parents in children’s digital technology use.Keywords: digital parenting, parental mediation of internet use, parents, adolescenc