Adoption of Parental Mediation Strategies for Teenagers' Internet Use

Abstract

Increased internet use and access to digital devices have made parents to worry about their children being exposed to risks associated with virtual world. Parents being their primary care-taker may impact the digital life of a child. The present study investigated the mediation strategies adopted by parents of teenagers aged between 13 to 17 years. Four mediation strategies namely active mediation, restrictive mediation, technical and monitoring were derived from a wide range of internally consistent mediation practices by using principal factor analysis. The parental mediation was mainly predicted by child’s age. Overall parents deployed lesser mediation as the child grows. The impact of the child’s gender proved significant for adoption of restrictive and technical parental mediation practices only. Significant variations in technical mediation were also observed between mothers and fathers.