Poster #238 - Sources of Parenting Information: Evaluation of Traditional and Technologically Innovative Resources

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

As access to technologically innovative resources (e.g., social media tools, smartphone applications) increases, people are changing the way that they get information about a wide variety of topics, including information on parenting and childrearing. However, little is know about preferences for and use of the wide variety of resources currently available to parents. This study examined parents’ use of a range of both traditional resources (e.g., family members, doctors, books) and technologically innovative resources (e.g., social media platforms, apps, podcasts, parenting blogs). In addition, factors that may influence use of technologically innovative resources were explored. Parents who had at least one child under the age of 18 years completed an online survey (N = 381; 53% female; M[parent age] = 40 years). Most parents had multiple children (M[# children] = 2.23, M[child age] = 11.59 years). Among traditional resources (Table 1), the resources used by the largest percentage of parents included their own parents (77.7%), their spouses/partners (66.9%), and their friends (50.4%). Among technologically innovative sources (Table 2), child development websites (47.5%), social media platforms (45.7%), and medical websites (45.1%) were used by the largest percentage of parents. Within the social media category, Facebook was the most commonly used resource (32.5%), followed by YouTube (21.8%) and Pinterest (13.6%). Overall, a larger portion of parents endorsed using traditional resources than technologically innovative resources (χ2 = 53.29, p < .001), with 21% of parents reporting that they had never used any of the technologically innovative resources and only 4.2% of parents denying use of any traditional resources. In a direct evaluation of resource preference across traditional and technologically innovative options, parents identified spouse/partner (37.0%) as their most preferred source for parenting information. Combined, family members (e.g., spouse, parent) and friends comprised 72.2% of the most preferred resources. Only 12.9% of participants identified one of the technologically innovative options as their preferred source of information, with medical websites (2.1%) endorsed most frequently. In order to better understand the characteristics of parents who use technologically innovative resources, a binary logistic regression was run in which parental age, gender, education level, monthly income, and perceived social support were included as predictors of using any of the technologically innovative resources. The model accounted for 20.8% of variance in technologically innovative resource use (p < .001). Specifically, using technologically innovative parenting resources was associated with being younger (ORadj = 0.95), attaining higher levels of education (ORadj = 1.47), and perceiving more social support (ORadj = 1.03), all p-values < .01. While parents use an array of sources to obtain parenting information, traditional resources (specifically family and friends) remain the most commonly used and most preferred resources. However, a sizable portion of participants reported using websites and social media platforms as sources of parenting information. Additional research is needed (1) to better understand the ways parents use different sources of information and (2) to evaluate the content of the information available, especially information presented through technologically innovative platforms.

Authors

• Sarah Rabbitt, Oberlin College
  Presenting Author

• Zoey Keeley, Oberlin College
  Non-Presenting Author