Do (pre)adolescents mind about healthy media use: Relationships with parental mediation, demographics and use of devices
Keywords
Health risk prevention
media use
restrictive parental mediation
active mediation
co-use
Publication details
| Year: | 2018 |
| DOI: | 10.5817/cp2018-2-1 |
| Issued: | 2018 |
| Language: | English |
| Volume: | 12 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Nikken P. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace |
| Publisher: | Masaryk University Press |
| Topics: | Wellbeing; Social mediation |
| Sample: | "In the spring of 2015 an online questionnaire was presented to 1,741 (pre)adolescents between 10 and 18 years in the Netherlands after their parents had given consent to participate. The (pre)adolescents were pooled from a large database of respondents who had given assent to participate in (online) research by a professional research agency (TNS NIPO). In return for their cooperation they were paid a small incentive. Within the final sample 91.6 percent had a (smart)phone of their own, 58.2 percent also had a laptop, 54.8 percent owned a TV set, 51.5 a game console, and 46.6 percent owned a tablet. The mean age of the respondents was 14.14 years (SD = 2.58). There were somewhat more boys (51.8%) than girls. With regard to educational type, 23 percent of the respondents attained primary education (their age varied from 10 to 13 years, mean age 10.7 years), 58.5 percent attained secondary education at a lower, vocational level (age varied from 11 to 18 years, mean 14.7), and 18.5 percent attained secondary education at a higher (pre-)university level (age varied from 14 to 18 years, mean 16.7). Regarding secondary education, the sample contained more respondents from vocational education as compared to figures from Dutch society (75% versus 66%) and less respondents from higher (pre-)university education (25% versus 34%) (Nederlands Jeugdinstituut, 2017). The vast majority of the respondents (91.3%) reported to classify themselves as Dutch, whereas 0.4 to 1.2 percent choose either Moroccan, Turkish, Surinamese, Antillean or Indonesian, and 4.8 percent picked ‘other non-western’ nationality." (Nikken, 2018, p. 4) |
| Implications For Parents About: | Parental practices / parental mediation |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Other |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | stimulating healthy media use in children as a role of parents |
Abstract
Some forms of media use may negatively affect (pre)adolescents’ health, but little is known about the parent’s role herein. Therefore, an online questionnaire among 1,741 Dutch youngsters (10-18 years) explored, a) whether they use electronic media in a healthy manner – i.e., no media during bedtime; no smartphones while cycling; lowering headset volume; taking breaks during extended media use; and keeping un upright posture during extended use, b) whether these healthy manners vary with their gender, education level, age and use of media devices, and c) whether their healthy media use varies with their parent’s mediation. The analyses revealed that ‘only’ 11 to 30% of (pre-)adolescents use media in a healthy manner. Moreover, as expected, pre-adolescents (10-12 years), adolescents from higher education and girls were more apt to use media in a healthy manner, as were frequent users of smartphones. Finally, (pre-)adolescents who are restricted in media use by their parents and who co-use media together with parents were about two times likely to use media in a healthy manner than youngsters whose parents are not involved. These outcomes imply that healthy media use deserves more attention within the framework of media-literacy and parental mediation.
Outcome
The analyses revealed that ‘only’ 11 to 30% of (pre-)adolescents use media in a healthy manner. Moreover, as expected, pre-adolescents (10-12 years), adolescents from higher education and girls were more apt to use media in a healthy manner, as were frequent users of smartphones. Finally, (pre-)adolescents who are restricted in media use by their parents and who co-use media together with parents were about two times likely to use media in a healthy manner than youngsters whose parents are not involved.