Preschool Children’s Views Regarding Their Parents’ Frequency of Internet Use at Home and Its Relevant Effects

This research aims to describe the intensity of parents’ Internet use at home and its relevant effects on their children based on their preschool children’s views. This study, a qualitative research, has a phenomenological design. The research group was selected using the criterion sampling and is composed of 23 children attending preschool between the ages of five and six. Research data have been collected through semistructured interviews with the children and demographic forms from the parents. Based on the descriptive analysis technique, all data have undergone data reduction, visualization by conversion into systematic wholes, extrapolation, and lastly interpretation. The following are some significant findings of the current study. Children think their parents spend “too much” time on the Internet at home. According to children’s views, parents use the Internet mostly to play games, browse social media, message others, and watch TV series and soccer matches. According to the children, mothers are the family members who use the Internet most often. Children are quite disturbed by their parents’ home Internet use; they feel unhappy, lonely, bored and angry when their parents are online. When their parents are found online, a significant majority of the children spend their time using web-based applications on smartphones, tablets, and computers like their parents. Relying on game-based applications, more than half the children believe preschool kids should make use of the Internet.

"Children mostly regard the Internet as a platform to play games, watch videos and cartoons, check social media, and shop. Interestingly, the meanings vary in terms of gender. One can conclude this discrepancy to stem from the differences among parents’ aims for going online as they are the role models at home. Girls seem to mostly adopt their mothers’ ways and boys to imitate their fathers in terms of how they use the Internet. More than half the children believe the Internet to be harmful. When further encouraged to talk about their reasons, they mostly underlined radiation, expensive Internet bills, and its potential to harm the eyes." (Erişti & Avcı, 2018, p.176) "Boredom, unhappiness, loneliness, and frustration are the feelings children described to answer how they feel while their parents are online." (Erişti & Avcı, 2018, p.177) "Ten of the 23 children interviewed within the scope of this research believe children should not use the Internet. Their reasons for this are thinking that spending long hours online can be hazardous for their health and parents can get angry at them. A similar number of participants (11) noted children should be allowed to use the Internet. The main reason for this thought seems to be the presence of good quality games online, as was able to be concluded from the relevant quotes. That the children underlined only physical and economic drawbacks about frequent Internet use can be interpreted as a sign showing these children to be uninformed about the mental, emotional, psychological, and educational aspects of overusing the Internet." (Erişti & Avcı, 2018, p.178)