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Social Media, Parent Child-Relationship And Impact On The Child

1. Introduction

Social media has grown to be an almost universal means of social

communication since the mid-2000s (Perrin & Anderson, 2019). people can play
games, look up news and events, and exchange and view media with friends, family,
coworkers, and other people via websites and applications. The majority of users
utilize these tools on a daily basis. According to Perrin and Anderson (2019),
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest were the most popular platforms in
2019. Use varies significantly by age group. Nearly 90% of those aged 18 to 29
reported using social media in 2018. (Smith & Anderson, 2018). Just 64% of
respondents aged 50 to 64 and 73% of respondents aged 30 to 49 reported using social
media at all (Smith & Anderson, 2018). This research looks at how parents use social
media and how their views about it affect how they watch their teenage children.
Teens use social media regularly, just like adults do. 94% of teenagers
between the ages of 14 and 17 in one research reported having at least one active
social media account (Barry et al., 2017). According to Barry et al. (2017), over two-
thirds said they used social media at least once a day. For young people, heavy usage
may be harmful. According to other studies, youths' usage of social media websites
was positively connected with feelings of loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and poor sleep
(Barry et al., 2017; Primack et al., 2017; Woods & Scott, 2016). According to Smith
and Anderson (2018), 85% of teenagers said they utilized YouTube, 72% Instagram,
and 69% Snapchat in 2018. Facebook is a platform that is more popular with people
their parents' age (Perrin & Anderson, 2019). Roughly half of them utilized it.
In terms of policing their adolescent children's access to social media, parents
are crucial. According to one assessment, over 70% of parents said they kept an eye
on their adolescent's social media usage (Barry et al., 2017). These initiatives can
lessen juvenile dangerous behavior. More parental supervision was found to be
predictive of less dangerous online behavior, particularly interaction with strangers,
according to Symons et al. (2019). Parents can help teenagers avoid harmful mental
health consequences by teaching them how to critically analyze internet information,
according to Walch and Sabey (2019). Parents vary in how often they use social
media, how they use it (passively or actively), which platforms they use, and how
they feel about the content they see there. However, no research has looked at the
possible relationship between these variations in parent usage and variations in
parental supervision of adolescent social media use. By examining how each of these
characteristics influences two things—parents' supervision of their teen's social media
use and their opinions about the effects of social media on teenagers—this study fills
a vacuum in the literature.

2. How parents use social media

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Self-regulating screen time and social media use is a challenge that both
parents and teens must overcome. In terms of their own usage, the majority of parents
of teenagers—55%—said they thought they used social media for the appropriate
amount of time in 2018; about 25% said they checked their accounts too often
(Jingjing, 2018). Teens have greater internal conflict. According to Jingjing's (2018)
survey, 41% of teenagers said they spent excessive time on social media, while 43%
thought they checked their accounts about the correct amount of time. Teens
expressed annoyance when their parents would put down their phones during a chat,
and vice versa. Approximately 33% of parents in a previous research said they were
worried or had worries regarding their child's usage of technology (Duggan et al.,
2015). It is still unclear, though, how parents' opinions of teen usage are affected by
how much they use.
Previous studies have shown variations in social media usage between parents
and non-parents. The frequency with which they utilize social media is one distinction.
Parents were found to be more likely than non-parents to log onto Facebook and
LinkedIn everyday or many times a day, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center
survey (Duggan et al., 2015). Additionally, they interact with material in various ways.
Parents were more likely than non-parents to report that they made an effort to react
in some manner when positive news was shared on social media. For instance, they
could comment on a post, tell a tale, or respond to a query. Reactions to bad news
were roughly comparable across parents and non-parents. According to Dougan et al.
(2015), over 70% of both groups said they felt supported by social media. However,
parents did not consider social media to be a primary source of knowledge or support
when it came to parenting. The makeup of their social networks was another
distinction between parents and non-parents. Parents included their own parents and
neighbors more frequently than non-parents did (Dugganet al., 2015). Overall, these
tendencies in previous studies suggest that parents may actively engage with positive
information online and actively seek out opportunities for online family relationships
compared to non-parents.
Variation among parents has also been identified in previous study. For
example, compared to dads and older parents, mothers and parents under 40 used
social media sites like Facebook more frequently (Duggan et al., 2015). Mothers were
more likely to report that via their social media networks, they both provided help to
others and got support in return. Additionally, they were more inclined to react on
social media to news, both good and bad, than dads were. These results imply that
moms, who use social media more frequently and actively than dads, may be more
involved in social media monitoring. The makeup of social networks was similarly
influenced by age. The likelihood of parents include their child in their social network
was higher for older parents and parents of older children. Compared to older parents,
younger parents were more likely to include acquaintances from their past (Duggan et
al., 2015).
Parents who were active social media users were separated from those who
were more inactive by Lin et al. (2019). People who post more often than they watch
are considered active users. Writing a post, uploading images or videos, leaving
comments, making ideas, and replying to inquiries are all examples of posting. Those
that read and watch more without adding anything of their own are considered passive
consumers.
According to Lin et al. (2019), youths who are active users are more likely to
assist teens in navigating the effect of social media. Social media influencers are
people who utilize their platform to promote companies or ideas through smart
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marketing, their reputation, or other means. It's possible that the material they offer or
advocate is inaccurate. Parents who are aware of this can encourage kids to question
the sources and content of their media. In contrast, passive users were neither more
nor less likely to employ parental mediation to lessen the influence of social
influencers and had more positive opinions of them. According to Lin et al. (2019),
these parents might not think it's necessary to keep an eye on or step in when their
kids interact with social media celebrities. Unfortunately, other than assisting
teenagers in responding to social influencers, Lin et al.'s (2019) work has not been
expanded to cover other facets of parental supervision.

3. Impact of parent use and intervention

The general and social media usage of parents can have a significant influence
on comparable habits in teenagers. Previous studies have indicated that parents act as
role models for conduct. According to Vaala and Bleakley (2015), teenagers who had
parents who used social media or other technologies more regularly also likely to use
these platforms and other technologies more frequently than other teenagers. Edgerly
et al. (2018) discovered evidence of device-matching as well; teenagers typically used
their parents' gadgets to obtain news. How parents react to teen use might also be
influenced by their own usage. Hwang and Jeong (2015) discovered that parents with
smartphone addictions were less inclined to negotiate or hold talks to control their
adolescent children's smartphone use. Instead, they turned to limiting tactics such as
seizing phones. Parents who were more concerned about smartphone addiction were
also more inclined to take action to keep an eye on their teen's smartphone use. The
use habits of a parent most likely influence these impressions.
Whether or not to friend or connect with a child on social media is a crucial
parental choice. For instance, research by Kanner et al. (2012) discovered that when
parents friended their kids on Facebook, parent-child conflict decreased. Keeping up
with internet interactions increased connectivity in parent-child relationships overall.
Mesch (2018) found that social media parent-child relationships decreased the risk
that a kid would become a victim of cyberbullying.
According to Abar et al. (2018), drug usage has decreased. Mesch (2018)
linked these patterns to teenagers' propensity to tell their parents more when they are
connected on social media. However, Kanter et al. (2012) discovered that there was
no commensurate rise in people's views of privacy violation. Research on first-year
college students and high school students revealed that parents and other family
members were often included in the social networks of teenagers and young adults
(Abar et al., 2018; Yang, 2018). They also gave their parents the same access to their
personal data as their pals, if not more.
On the other hand, excessive parental engagement may be detrimental to
adolescent behavior and parent-child relationships. According to earlier studies, when
parents encouraged and assisted their online objectives, young adults achieved better
academically and adjusted as students (Burke et al., 2018). In contrast, this was not
the case when parents used social media to participate in overparenting.
Overparenting involves sharing unsolicited advice, monitoring the movements of
others, looking into the backgrounds of peers, and intervening without being asked.
Teens who use these strategies have been shown to have higher levels of anxiety and
despair (Yap et al., 2014).
Restrictive parental monitoring techniques, such as tracking applications or
unwelcome inspection of online activity, have been linked to youth engaging in
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riskier online conduct, according to Sasson and Mesch's (2016) observations.

However, giving teenagers direction and counsel on internet use was linked to less
dangerous online conduct.
One distinctive way that parents utilize social media is through "sharenting,"
which is the posting and sharing of material about their kids (Marasli et al., 2016).
Mixed sentiments exist among adolescents regarding this approach (Ouvrein &
Verswijvel, 2019). According to one study, teenagers believed that parents would
likely post this kind of content online for four reasons: to share information and
record significant events; to ask for or receive parenting advice; to start a conversation
with others; or simply to improve their own self-image. (Verswijvel et al., 2019). The
majority of teens believed that exchanging information was the main goal.
Adolescents generally have a bad opinion of sharenting, believing it to be pointless or
annoying. Boys and those who believed their parents were exchanging information for
personal gain were more likely to experience this.

Conclusion

Very little research has been done to far on how parents' experiences with
social media influence their parenting techniques when their kids start utilizing new
and similar sites. However, bullying, disruptions in face-to-face interactions, the
establishment of unattainable standards, addiction, and peer pressure are just a few of
the serious worries that parents and teenagers have about social media (Anderson,
2018; Hwang & Jeong, 2015). According to other studies, teenagers frequently imitate
their parents' technological habits, including the frequency with which they use
different platforms and the devices they use to access material such as news (Edgerly
et al., 2018; Vaala & Bleakley, 2015). To put it another way, researching teenage
social media use on its own is not enough; we also need to comprehend the
individuals and systems that shape their decisions. The study's findings suggest that
parents' social media usage has no impact on the guidelines they establish for their
teenagers or the manner in which they keep an eye on their use of social media.
Instead, it appears that these parenting choices are influenced by their emotional
response to what they encounter online. But not every emotion has the same power to
influence people. This study found a correlation between parental behavior variations
and feeling motivated. Only opinions toward social media usage in general were
associated with other emotions. To determine what information causes parents to feel
a certain way emotionally, more research is required. This study brought to light other
issues with parental supervision of social media usage, such as the trend toward less
supervision for older teenagers (who may require more or less direction than younger
teens) and variations in the monitoring of parents and children based on gender. To
determine how parents could control social media use differently for kids living in the
same home, more study is required.
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Work Cited
Wallace, Lacey N. "Associations between parental monitoring and parents’ social media
use and social media perceptions." Social Sciences & Humanities Open 6.1 (2022):
100294.

Griffith, Shayl F., et al. "Making the best of app use: The impact of parent-child co-use
of interactive media on children’s learning in the US." Journal of Children and
Media 16.2 (2022): 271-287.