Szülők véleménye az óvodáskorú gyermekek IKT-eszköz használatának negatív és pozitív hatásairól

Increasing numbers of children under the age of 6 in Hungary are using ICT devices (Livingstone, Haddo & Gorzig, 2012) and are exposed to the effects of technology in their homes. Family attitudes towards the use of ICT significantly influence the quantity and quality of the use of digital devices by preschoolers (Kalaš, 2010). Parents of preschool children often allow the use of ICT tools and digital content for develop-ment, pedagogy or leisure, and a significant proportion of them are highly aware users who pay careful attention to how their child uses ICT tools and learns about the pro-gram before allowing such use (Hódi , Tóth, B. Német & Fáyné Dombi, 2019). How-ever, an important piece of the puzzle that might shed light on the motives behind pa-rental choices is missing: namely how parents view the positive and negative effects of ICT tools and how these views guide them in their children’s digital socialization. The data reported in the present study aims to fill to this lacuna in the Hungarian context.In our research in municipal, county seat -maintained kindergartens, we asked parents to share their views on the positive and negative effects of ICT use at the preschool stage. The question relating to the positive effects of the technology were answered by 1,507 (78.5%), while that on negative effects by 1,545 (82.14%) of the parents. The data were processed using the content analysis method.In our study, the benefits of infocommunication technology are typically seen by parents in terms of knowledge acquisition, development and learning opportunities, and access to information. Respondents believe that early media experiences will prepare their children for later academic success and will make it easier for children to develop at school. Many respondents have positive views on digital media enter-tainment, as these keep children occupied when they are themselves busy.The majority of parents see the risk of ICT use in addictive and aggressive, vio-lent behaviour. More than a third of respondents think that ICT makes children re-ject real-world, physical activities, to engage in play less frequently with their peers, and to limit relationships requiring a personal presence. Parents also believe that media activity can cause physical, cognitive, mental, and socialization disorders.The responses suggest that parents perceive the effects of ICT technologies as fundamentally positive in our case, too, but are less able to identify them. How-ever, as in the case of other research, the above-mentioned risks fall into relatively well-defined categories (Chaudron, 2015; Kalaš, 2010)

The study focused on the parental perception on the positive and negative effects of children's ICT-use. Among positive effects parents mainly mentioned educational possibilities, information gathering, the fact the ICT-use will be inevitable in the future, so kids have to be prepared for that and also recited the positive effect on interpersonal communication. In regards of negative effects the possibility of triggering unwanted behavior, contacting unsuitable materials online. The were also worried that being online will make it harder to focus on offline activities and could cause different kind of disorders. Some parent emphasized the importance of controlling the child ICT usage in order to enjoy the positive effects and avoid the negative ones, and understand their role as a gatekeeper from this respect. "... a szülők in-kább vannak tisztában a technológia veszélyeivel, mint annak előnyeivel. A lehetséges veszélyekről komplexebb, gyakran több rizikófaktort tartalmazó véleményeket fogalmaztak meg. De erre utal az is, hogy jóval többen vannak, akik azt nyilatkozták, hogy nem ismernek pozitív hatást." (B. Németh, M., Hódi, Ágnes, Juhász, F., Sárik, A., & Tóth, E. (2021). Szülők véleménye az óvodáskorú gyermekek IKT-eszköz használatának negatív és pozitív hatásairól. Gyermeknevelés Tudományos Folyóirat, 9(1), 8-38. https://doi.org/10.31074/gyntf.2021.1.8.38) "...parents are more aware of the risks of the technology than with the positive effects. They have more complex views on risks and listed more risk factors in their opinions. Also, quite a lot of parents said that they did not know any positive effects." (B. Németh, M., Hódi, Ágnes, Juhász, F., Sárik, A., & Tóth, E. (2021). Szülők véleménye az óvodáskorú gyermekek IKT-eszköz használatának negatív és pozitív hatásairól. Gyermeknevelés Tudományos Folyóirat, 9(1), 8-38. https://doi.org/10.31074/gyntf.2021.1.8.38 p: 27)