Parental attitudes towards childrens smartphone usage

Aim: assessment of parental attitude towards children’s smartphone usage patterns Introduction: The rocketing growth of new media technology, especially the Internet, brought up a “digital generation”, which both excites and worries their parents. However, parents’ perception and attitudes toward children’s smartphone use has seldom been investigated. Smartphones have made internet readily available at all times of the day, fostering internet dependence and thus their own. Methodology: Parents with children more than or equal to 10 years of age, who visited Pediatrics Out-patient Department or were employed in Department of Pediatrics were randomly selected till a sample size of 100 was obtained. After obtaining informed consent, they were asked to respond to a specifically designed questionnaire. Results: Parents’ score on attitude towards media and technology usage scale had a significant negative correlation with their perception of their child’s internet usage pattern (Pearson’s coefficient: -0.244, p 0.014) and a significant positive correlation with their children’s score on smartphone addiction scale (Pearson’s coefficient: 0.253, p 0.011) Conclusions: Parents of older age group have a negative attitude towards media and technology usage and thus perceive higher smartphone usage in their children as compared to younger parents. Parents are able to identify when their children are having problematic smartphone usage patterns.

Author(s): Gayatri Bhatia, Jyoti Shetty

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