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Of Children and Screens: Parents Managing Boundaries, Opportunity and Challenges

Author(s): Daniel Dahl

Thursday 15  |   11:40-12:00

Room: TP55

Session: Sociality in the Digital Age: Interactions, Emotions, Lifestyles, and Norms

Digital media devices and their applications have become a ubiquitous part of the lives of children today. Handheld devices are central hubs for communication with family and friends, computers are used for schoolwork, and digital media serve as a never-ending source of entertainment. Meanwhile, parents try to make sense of, and manage, their children’s use, while navigating pressure about limiting screen time. Aiming to find out how parents perceive and manage their children’s digital media activities, as well as the challenges associated with these practices, this study uses semi-structured interviews with parents to children around the ages 10-12. Preadolescence is a time where many children enter new online arenas, forcing parents to confront decisions around independence and belonging. Results uncover tradeoffs between parents’ own expectations and social pressure, balancing privacy, and the role of negotiations. Parents’ worries include unsupervised adaptation of undesirable norms, feeling left out, consumerism, and passivity. On the other hand, parents also showed appreciation of creative outlets, language acquisition, cultivating social relationships, information seeking, and co-playing. This study adds to ongoing discussions around parenting children’s digital media use and the coming of age online, offering insight into the multiple roles digital media play in families’ everyday life.