Instead of calling on the federal government to regulate tween and teen use of social media, perhaps we should look a little closer to home. A new study suggests parental policies and habits around screens are a significant predictor of problematic use among adolescents.
One major finding: Kids getting too much “screen time” are more likely to have parents who get too much screen time.
“One of the biggest predictors of adolescents’ screen use is their parents’ screen use,” pediatrician and lead study author Jason Nagata told The Washington Post.
This was a massive study looking at the screen habits of more than 10,000 kids ages 12 and 13. Published in the journal Pediatric Research, the study—”Associations between media parenting practices and early adolescent screen use”—looked at how often parents used cellphones or other screens around their kids and family policies surrounding technology, such as whether screens were often employed during meal times (35.6 percent said yes), whether kids had access to screens in their bedrooms (46.2 percent said yes), and whether parents monitored and/or limited screen time during the week (67.4 percent and 76.2 percent said yes). Researchers also examined how often the children of these parents engaged in tech-based activities (including using social media, playing video games, and being on a cell phone generally) and how this affected various aspects of their lives.
The researchers found that “parent screen use, family mealtime screen use, and bedroom screen use were associated with greater adolescent screen time and problematic social media, video game, and mobile phone use.”
In addition, “parental use of screens to control behavior (e.g., as a reward or punishment) was associated with higher screen time and greater problematic video game use.”
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