Developmental Trajectories of Parental Media Mediation Across Childhood

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Abstract

Despite a large body of literature on the opportunities of parental media mediation to enhance positive media effects and offset negative media effects, a long-term view as to the development of such mediation across childhood is lacking. The current four-wave panel study aimed to address this gap by investigating developmental trajectories of parental mediation across childhood and potential heterogeneity in these trajectories across families. We used an accelerated cohort-sequential design that investigated five cohorts of children, aged three to seven at intake (N=729). Multiple group multiple cohort growth modeling revealed that parents’ level of restrictive and active mediation follows a curvilinear pattern, with a peak at around age eight. Heterogeneity exists in how parents implement their mediation strategies, whereby parents of boys are more likely than parents of girls to restrict and actively discourage media content, as well as more strongly increase their efforts to restrict media content throughout childhood.

Authors

• Ine Beyens, U of Amsterdam

• Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, U of Amsterdam/ASCoR