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ViewAttendees 6

Symposia

Suicide and Self-Injury

Multimethod Approaches in the Science of Social Media and Suicide: Rethinking Risk, Protection, and Prevention

5 - (SYM 72) Multimethod Assessment of Parenting Strategies for Managing Early Adolescents' Social Media Use

Saturday, November 16, 2024
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM EST
Location: Grand Ballroom F, Level 5, Downtown Marriott
Abstract Body

Parents play an important role in their children’s media habits, yet research on parenting in the digital age has lagged behind the growing influence of social media on youth. The current study aimed to characterize how parents perceive and implement social media-specific parenting strategies with early adolescents. 

A total of 102 community-recruited parents of adolescents (ages 12-15) completed baseline assessment measures including a parent-child interaction task and separate qualitative interviews. Parents then completed 15 days of daily diary assessments of their use of social media parenting strategies, including: communication, limit-setting, co-use, technical mediation, and monitoring.  Parent demographics included: 94.1% Cisgender Female, 4.9% Cisgender Male, 1.0% Non-Binary; 27.5% Hispanic/Latinx, 10.8%: Black, 60.8% White; 15.6% household income < $25k, 29.4% household income $25k-$75k.

Quantitative results indicate that nearly two-thirds of parents used at least four of the five social media parenting strategies, with communication being the most frequent (see Table 1). In addition, results from observationally-coded interaction tasks suggest that communication about social media is aided by parental articulation of both benefits and risks, use of a positive tone, and listening to the child’s point of view. Qualitative results highlight the range of strategies parents use and provide insight into why and how strategies were implemented, as well as barriers to using them. Overall, findings highlight the need to understand the diversity and complexity of social media-specific parenting strategies to advance effective research on parenting in the digital age.


Table 1. Frequency and Consistency of Parenting Strategy Use















































Strategy


Average proportion of days strategy used

M (SD)


Used strategy at least once

n (%)


Used strategy most frequently

n (%)


ICC


Communication


.61 (.29)


85 (96.6)


45 (51.1)


0.30


Co-Use


.38 (.30)


74 (84.1)


18 (20.5)


0.32


Technical mediation


.32 (.42)


39 (44.3)


21 (23.9)


0.80


Monitoring


.33 (.34)


63 (71.6)


14 (15.9)


0.48


Limit setting


.45 (.37)


75 (85.2)


24 (27.3)


0.51




Note: Sample limited to parents (n =88) who completed 60% or more of the daily diary surveys. “Average proportion of days strategy used” is the number of days parents reported using a strategy as a proportion of total daily surveys completed. Some parents used multiple strategies with equal frequency, so “Used strategy most frequently” total percentages add up to more than 100. ICC = intraclass correlation.