Parents' Perceptions of Children's Digital Media Diet: Exploring the Salience of Gender and Age

• In Event: Young Children's Literacy Practices With Digital Books at Home and at School: International Evidence

Abstract

Objective
A concern, often portrayed in the popular media, is that new media are detrimental to children’s social development (Al Jazeera, August 2014). There is also a pervasive academic discussion (Montgomery, 2002; Peck, Scharf, DeBoer, 2015) of some media being developmentally appropriate only at a certain age and that, for boys in particular, new media can unlock their engagement in literacy (Formby, 2014).
Given that for young children, parents broker and mediate their experiences, this study examines parents’ perceptions about their children’s engagement with media at home, with a particular focus on children’s age and gender as potential factors influencing parents’ perceptions and practices.
Methods
The paper draws on data from a national survey of parents’ practices and perceptions of their children’s reading for pleasure with print and digital books, commissioned by Booktrust in 2015. For this study, answers given by 709 UK parents of 373 boys and 336 girls aged between 0-8 years, were analysed in relation to parents’ concerns and strategies for ensuring their child’s balanced digital media diet. Parents responded online or by telephone and their verbatim answers were categorised using content analysis. Chi-square was calculated for each category to examine whether there might be associations between gender/age and particular practices.
Findings
There were eight main categories in parents’ perceptions about their children’s use of digital media at home: child engagement, technology appeal, healthy development relational nature of engagement, variety of experiences, media pressure, family routines, no perception of balance.
Gender was significant for two of the categories: Healthy development Χ2(1)=4.82,p=.028 and Family routines Χ2(2) = 6.64, p=.036. For healthy development, parents seemed to be more concerned about their child’s healthy development if the child was a boy (2.6% boys versus 1% girls). For family routines parents were less concerned when the child was a girl (22.5% girls versus 17.3% of boys).
When considering children’s age, parents perceived technology as the determining factor affecting the balance significantly more when their child was older, with the highest percentage for parents of eight-year olds (8.3%, Χ2(2) = 8.62, p=.035). Conversely, for child’s healthy development, there was a significant effect of age in favour of younger children, with parents of 0-2 year olds (3.9%) mentioning this as the major determining factor Χ2(2) = 8.14, p=.043.
Implications
With increasingly young children reported to interact with media on a daily basis (Ofcom, 2014) there is a strong need to explore questions around the influences on children’s everyday interactions with media. This study evidences the range of perceptions parents hold in relation to their child’s engagement with technologies at home. Child’s gender and age were significant factors only in relation to parents’ concerns around the health risks associated with unbalanced engagement with digital and non-digital resources. The key implication therefore is that while a unified parents’ view on the value of digital media for young children is unlikely, a common understanding of the benefits and limitations of media for children’s healthy development is necessary.

Authors

• Natalia Kucirkova, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Karen Littleton, The Open University