The Distracted Family: Associations between Parent Distraction with Technology, Parenting, and Child Distraction with Technology

• In Event: 1-111 - Familial and Contextual Influences on Media Use for Families with Young Children

Integrative Statement

Parent media use is an important determinant of child media habits (Wartella, 2014) and potentially interrupts parent-child interactions (Kirkorian et al, 2009). Some observational work suggests that parent mobile technology use may be associated with fewer parent-child interactions (Radesky et al, 2015) and lower parent responsiveness (Hiniker et al, 2015). Longitudinal survey research suggests that parent distraction with technology (PDT) can lead to child behavior problems and also a cycle between parents and children such that child behavior problems lead to parent stress and greater PDT (McDaniel & Radesky, 2018). The current study expands on this work by examining whether PDT is associated (1) directly with children’s distraction with technology (CDT) and (2) indirectly with CDT via parenting quality (i.e., overreacting to child behavior), and whether (3) parents become stressed from CDT and in turn are more likely to turn to technology themselves (PDT) (Figure 1).

Participants (N = 261 parents) completed an online survey, including measures of parenting overreactivity (Arnold et al., 1993; Karazsia et al., 2008), parenting stress (Van den Troost et al., 2005), depression (CES-D), and demographics. To measure PDT, parents completed a 4-item measure of problematic phone tendencies (e.g., “During time with my child, I find it difficult to stay away from checking my phone”). CDT was measured using 5 items (e.g., “My children are more interested in their phone, tablet, or device than they are in me” and “My children ignore me when they are on a device”). All variables were created by averaging each’s scale’s items together to produce an overall score. On average, parents were 32.6 (SD = 6.2). Children were 9 years old or younger (M = 3.9, SD = 2.2). Median yearly household income was $70,513 (SD = $43,777; range $0 to $200,000).

We tested our conceptual model of both the direct path and indirect path (via parenting) between PDT and CDT as well as the paths between CDT and parent stress and ultimately between parent stress and more PDT (Figure 1). We judged good model fit (χ² (18) = 27.21, p = .08; RMSEA = .04; CFI = .98); paths were constrained to be equal across parent gender as no differences emerged. We controlled for income, child age, and parent depression. As hypothesized, we found that (1) greater PDT directly predicted greater CDT, (2) indirectly predicted greater CDT through more overreactive parenting, and (3) CDT indirectly predicted greater PDT via parenting stress.

Our results support our conceptual model and suggest transactional dynamics in which PDT may lead children to also become more distracted by technology (i.e., directly through role modeling, and indirectly through changes in parenting responses); and, ultimately CDT may feed back into parenting-related stress and their own technology use. While directionality cannot be inferred from these cross-sectional findings, replication in longitudinal work would deepen understanding of whether children adopt parents’ unhealthy media habits, and whether this further exacerbates problems within the family over time.

Authors

• Brandon T. McDaniel, Illinois State University
  Presenting Author

• Jenny Radesky, Medical School, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author