Parental mediation in the age of mobile technology

Abstract

This paper explores the impacts of adolescents' screen time, learning outcomes and parental performance in relation to different mediation strategies. These issues are addressed through the analysis of a representative survey carried out with 1000 families in Hungary in 2017. Within this research, 12-16-year-old teenagers and their parents were asked about their experiences and perceptions of mediation. Four main parental strategies can be identified: balancing mediation, restriction, permission and ad hoc mediation. The significance of parental performance in the analyses indicates that parental mediation forms part of the contemporary parenting skillset and correlates with perceptions of children's screen time and subjective quality of parenting.

Parental digital competence and influences on parenting mediation

“…Adding to the difficulty is their own low digital competence. Nagy et al (2023) introduced another category of mediation called permissive mediators, which is defined as the lack of involvement of the parents in their children's digital activities. In this regard, Pons-Salvador et al ( 2022) associated low education with permissive mediation.…”

Parental mediation of adolescents’ technology use: Unequal parenting practices

“…In the current discourse of parenting, parental mediation of teenagers' technology usage might be an important practice to promote teenagers' expertise and also to mitigate the harm of intensive or risky use and ensure the children's mental health ( Livingstone et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2010). In this section we apply the same approach as our previous quantitative analysis (Nagy et al, 2022), to discuss the types of mediation strategies.…”

“…enhancing the acquisition of specific skills and knowledge (Nagy et al, 2022). Moreover, enabling mediation empowers children, supports their active engagement and strengthens the positive uses of the internet (Livingstone et al, 2017).…”

“…Besides, the aims of the strategy of deference -autonomous and responsible online behaviour -are also consistent with those of intensive parenting; however, this form rather highlights the relevance of the parents' media usage patterns, and it is not an active one in terms of practices. Therefore, this strategy is very relevant in the period of adolescence (Nagy et al, 2022).…”

“…Lastly, we argue that monitoring children's online activities might be a relevant practice of intensive parenting since surveillance is a crucial norm of contemporary parenting (Nagy et al 2022).…”