Everybody knows it: this is the age of connection. Today’s youth are growing up in a fully connected world in which opportunities and possibilities are often interlaced with risks and responsibilities. For this reason, numerous scientists, associations and sovereign states have called for higher attention on how digital technologies and social media can affect the younger generations [1–3]. Yet, when it comes to create safer places online for kids and adolescents there is one demographic that is fundamental to keep in mind: parents.
Indeed, as children’s primary caregivers, parents wield considerable influence over how their kids interact with media. Within the family, parents continuously shape and oversee the media environment surrounding their children. Whether opting for a stricter or more permissive approach to media parenting, they can facilitate or prohibit multiple child’s behaviors and outcomes. “Does my child have a phone or a tablet? What can he or she do with it? Will I regulate its usage or not?” These are just simple questions that all parents must answer in today’s world. Of course, not all these questions have a correct answer. Most of the time, the best decision for each parent depends on their attitudes and dispositions towards technology, as well as their parenting styles, and their relationship with their children.
Parents that privilege an autonomy-supportive style might be more at ease with providing a developmentally appropriate rationale for their rules and take their children’s perspective into account when interacting with them. More specifically, they could employ a strategy called “parental active mediation”, that is the habit to talk, explain and evaluate media content and media use with children without indulging in criticism [4, 5]. These discussions, initiated by either the parent or child, allow children to form their own perspectives on the messages depicted in media. By delving into and expanding upon these themes, parents try to enhance their child's comprehension of what they're exposed to, potentially leading to beneficial outcomes. Active mediation suggests a more autonomy-granting strategy, thus increasing the likelihood of fostering internally regulated values and encouraging young people disclose their media usage and auto-adjust [6]. This strategy it’s sort of a media vaccination: parents “inoculate” children with strategies and values to contrast harmful media usage and then allow them to experiment, relying on what they learned. Thus, the main focus is on teaching adolescents to form their own skills in critically engaging with technologies, in contrast with just imposing time limits.
Of course, helping youths to be self-critical of their media consumption is not an easy task. Parents need to be attentive, supportive, and involved with their children if they want to be successful. In fact, parental mediation happens within the context of parent-child relationships. An involved parent is conscious of the time children spends online and can be present to alleviate potential risks and enhance expected benefits. It is no surprise that this kind of parenting would allow for better relationships and increased reliance on active mediation [7], as this techniques is based on these roots.
A second fundamental point regards parental attitudes and knowledge towards digital technologies. Being able to describe the risks and advantages that a correct media use brings to the table enables parents to better explain and argument their reasoning in rule-setting. Having a good self-efficacy towards technology can facilitate parents in understanding what is happening with the children’s digital world, thus helping them to approach the youth without any ill-funded criticism. Furthermore, having a positive attitude towards media can be the decisive factor in allowing the children to experiment in a safe context what these technologies allow them to do. Research support this assumption, and highlights how positive parental attitudes towards digital technologies are in fact a predictor of parental active mediation [7]. On the contrary, parents’ negative attitudes towards technology seems to elicit the opposite effect, facilitating a more reactive and stringent approach to technology use. [8]. This may be helpful in younger generations, but as children grow older, a more autonomy granting approach is appropriate, especially as they gain more digital literacy skills [9]
Thus, active media mediation seems like an excellent method to intercept and guide children’s digital technologies’ usage, even though one must admit that, at first glance, this approach does not seem enough structured to have a meaningful impact. Nevertheless, scientific research suggest otherwise.
Parental active mediation has been linked to improvement in problematic screen use, problematic smartphone use, media use in general, but not with problematic gaming [4, 10, 11]. All these relationships suggest that a parent practicing active mediation does not intend to completely cut-offscreen time, but rather to find a balance that works for the whole family. Furthermore, parental active mediation seems to have an indirect effect on other behavioral outcomes, not strictly related to media use, such as higher levels of prosocial behavior, and lower levels of aggression and externalizing behavior [6]. These associations show once again that active mediation is not only a limit-setting strategy, but an all-around parenting philosophy. Children and adolescents may internalize positive messages from their parents and apply them to different situations and environments.
In summary, parental active mediation can have significant benefits for children's well-being. Whether it's fostering positive behaviors, reducing problematic screen use, or protecting them from online risks, staying actively involved in young people’s media lives is key. Any parent can try to take amore active approach, it could make all the difference.
1. Twenge JM (2017) Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? The Atlantic
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